October 2, 2008 5:03PM

Bloomberg’s Banana Republic

By John Samples

Michael Bloomberg has decided to run for an additional term as mayor of New York. He will do so despite a law limiting mayors to two terms in New York.


Here’s some history. The voters twice endorsed the term limits law in 1993 and 1996. In 1993, the law passed by a margin of 59 percent to 41 percent. In 1996, the City Council tried to change the law to extend term from 8 to 12 years. The initiative making that change lost.


Of course, elected officials predicted disaster. Some agreed then but not now. John Mollenkopf, a well‐​known political scientist at the City University of New York said: “My initial reaction to the term limits was negative, but the experience of how they have worked has changed my mind. On balance, I think this feature of government does create openings for fresh thinking and new leadership.”


Bloomberg does not plan to put the change in term limits before the voters. Instead, he will try to get the City Council to extend his term. A New York Times survey of City Council members in early September found that a majority might support changing the term limits law. Perhaps that’s not surprising: two thirds of the City Council will be turned out of office in 2009 under the current law. If the mayor’s term can be extended, it will be easier to change the law for City Council members.


New Yorkers are not rolling over for Bloomberg. Gene Russianoff, a spokesman for the New York Public Interest Research Group, said of Bloomberg’s power grab: “Sadly, the move is worthy of ‘democracy’ in a banana republic.” Susan Lerner, executive director of Common Cause/​NY, called the mayor’s stance “profoundly undemocratic and deeply disquieting.” Even Establishment types are opposing him, according to the New York Times.


Before his ambition got the best of him, Bloomberg himself “called for the need for restraints on elected leaders, dismissed the notion that anyone is indispensable, and once called an effort to revise the limits ‘disgusting.’”


Let’s see if New Yorkers agree with the mayor.