Another reason to support "Clean Elections"

Pro-Clean Elections, Anti-Term Limits (0.00 / 0)

I'm all for clean (publicly financed) elections. I think competition is usually good in the marketplace and good for our politics.

But real competition also takes away the main reason for term limits: that incumbents have too much of an advantage over their challengers. I say reduce the monetary advantage in elections, and let the voters choose who they think is best.

Term limits excuses public laziness at the polls by automatically throwing people out regardless of whether they're doing a good job or not. And even less public involvement is the last thing we need these days.

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by: dsimon @ Mon Jan 12, 2009 at 20:23:12 PM UTC

Me too, actually (4.00 / 1)

I voted against the term limits bill in 1993, and voted for the extension (to three terms from two) in 1996.  Given the opportunity, I would vote to eliminate term limits.  I have long called term limits the wrong solution to the problem -- and Clean Elections is part of the right solution.

That being said, I have a larger problem with elected officialls voting, in their own self-interest and for no other actual reason, to overturn the twice-expressed will of the people.  I truly believe that if we had Clean Elections in NYC, not only could we have defeated the bill to extend term limits, but our elected officials who legitimately want to extend or eliminate term limits would have felt much easier about taking their case to the voters where it belongs.

Unfortunately, we are currently locked into a system in NYC that gives people cover when they want to claim that our city's government is transparent and far less corrupt -- when in fact the system is little more than a colossal waste of money (and I have numbers!).

Meanwhile, at the state level, we have no campaign finance system at all, and, practically speaking, no limits on contributions, no actual limits on spending, and no real enforcement of the weak laws that do exist (how many electeds have their own personal cars paid for by campaign committees?).

Minority Leader Malcolm Smith promised to bring a Clean Elections bill to the Senate floor, given the opportunity.  Majority Leader Smith now has the opportunity; we can only hope he follows through (I don't think any of the "three amigos" has spoken out on this issue).

Speaker Silver, meanwhile, doesn't particularly care for any kind of campaign finance reform, because it lowers his power level.  He has been willing, over the years, to pass one-house legislation, secure in the knowledge that Joe Bruno would never bring it up.  Now, it remains to be seen what he'll do.

That's why we need to lobby our state representatives, and lobby them hard.

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by: Dan Jacoby @ Mon Jan 12, 2009 at 21:59:36 PM UTC

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By All Means (0.00 / 0)

I'd love to see Smith bring a Clean Elections bill to the floor. At least get people on the record. (Though I do have problems with imposing mandatory spending limits on First Amendment grounds, the Clean Elections laws in place in Maine and Arizona on the state level avoid that problem by having an opt-in system, and they seem to work pretty well.)

I have mixed feelings about the NYC City Council overturning the term limits law approved twice by voter initiative. There is a good intuitive argument that if a measure was approved by the people, it should be undone the same way. On the other hand, if a majority of people really believe that no elected official should serve more than two terms, then they can just vote against anybody (in a primary or the general) who has served two terms.

You simply don't need a term limits law to have term limits--if that's what people really want. And if they're not willing to vote those people out, what does that say about real support for term limits?

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by: dsimon @ Tue Jan 13, 2009 at 05:10:53 AM UTC

[ Parent ]