If I were voting on extending term limits, I would vote against it.
If the law people decide to extend them, I’m voting for Giuliani. Just because.
If the law people don’t, I won’t even bother to vote.
If I were God, i would take Giuliani out of New York, period, after January and put him in a Federal position. (what one? No idea, but at least one where his mouth will be put to good use). Partly because I don’t think it helps the mandate of the next mayor for him to be stealing limelight, partly because I think Giuliani’s skills are not best suited to another four years as mayor.
I don’t think that term limits will be extended.
Giuliiani as President? And interesting idea. Picture him saying “I can’t believe that Chirac did that. Whoever would be such and idiot to do something like that is just stupid.”
As mentioned before, I think this whole thing is a temporary enthusiasm, and nothing will come of it.
But I would also add that though I am a strong supporter of Guliani, and think he has been a superb mayor overall (though a petty jerk on a personal level), I don’t see any reason to overturn term limits on order to keep him on as mayor.
I can understand that people feel he has provided strong leadership during the crisis. But I simply don’t understand the idea that we need him particularly for the “rebuilding”. What is in that that any ordinary mayor can’t do?
I’m not disturbed by the talk. I hope to God that Giuliani can be our mayor for at least one more term.
I’m opposed to term limits. I understand why they were put in place. But this isn’t the Tammany Hall era. If the voters want to elect someone to office, I say, let them.
Also, how many of you have visited NYC before and after Giuliani? I visited my sister when she moved here in 1990, and spent many terrifying weekends walking around, using public transportation, etc.
I moved here in 1996. The subways are SAFE! It used to be freaky taking the 1/9 train from Times Square to 14th Street in the village–during the DAY. That now seems ridiculous. That area’s like Candyland now. I love living here. And you know why?
Giuliani.
I’m writing him in at the General Election in November. (I’m not party-affiliated, so I can’t do anything today.) I agree that the man needs problems to tackle, and many of his recent excesses indicate, to me, that he had taken care of some of the most serious ones. But I think recent events indicate that we may have a few things left for him to mop up.
As long as people want to vote for him, and as long as he wants the job, let’s allow him to do it. The reason he’s considering a third term? He LOVES the job. And he does it well.
Not sure why you choose this smiley. Modifying the constitution to allow some “elected president” to serve for a second, third, or whatever term is commonplace . There is at least one such case somewhere every year. It’s also the first image which came to my mind when I heard about the Giuliani issue. Certainly he won’t become “New-York dictator” but nevertheless changing the law in order to allow a particular individual to be reelected “sounds” very banana republic-like. Either the law is good for everybody, either it isn’t. It’s not “good except when M. X is candidate”. If it must be changed, it should be changed after the vote. Not before.
Well you can’t really have it both ways, now can you? I mean you said yourself the people should be trusted to pick whomever they want. First of all, I agreed that the law needs to be followed and that Guiliani should not get an extended term. However, the irony in your argument is especially thick when you seem to put a lot of weight on the value of a law the people voted for when that same law strictly limits the choices people can make for Mayor.
Term limits are a dumb idea, but if they are in place then folks need to live with the consequences.
Not sure why you’re trying to pick an argument there. I agree; term limits are a bad idea, and voters should have a full choice of candidates. But the same voters didn’t want that, for reasons they collectively thought were better (and there is a good argument for them), and it’s not up to you or me to gainsay. They made their choice and can live with it, as you suggest.
As bad an idea as term limits may be, certainly overriding the Voice of the People in a democracy is far worse. But that’s what Giuliani (or maybe the GOP organization) is hinting at.
Peace to you as well. But Elvis, what “Voice of the People”? I’m a New Yorker, but I didn’t live here when term limits were passed. So, I’m stuck with a decision by an earlier group of people, lord knows how many of whom have moved away or passed away since then.
As for the referendum itself, I haven’t been able to track down the vote and the percentage of the electorate who voted, but I’d be shocked if even 25% of the NYC electorate voted in favor of it.
As I said before, referenda should be afforded somewhat more moral weight, but not more legal weight - it’s simply another means of enacting a law. If circumstances change - and boy did they this past two weeks - even referenda can be revisited.
I guess the question is, when are we lowly citizens allowed to change our minds? (Or, as Sua notes, decide that we don’t agree with people who previously made such laws, and want things to be better now?) Only AFTER the election, when there’s no chance of having Giuliani back in office? Why not change the term limit laws now?
I don’t understand the whole concept of term limits. I know the fear of despotism created these laws in the past, but really. In a democracy if the people wish to keep someone in power they should be allowed to vote for them as many terms as they please. If that person does a lousy job, the voters will vote them out. the artiface of a law limiting the number of terms punishes only those people who do an excellent job in office and maybe deserve another term to continue the good works.
If we wish to uphold democracy then we must trust the voters to make the right choice for themselves. I honestly can not see a mayor or President actually get away with declaring themselves King or Dictator without opposition, so why bother with the term limits?
So even though voters were smart enough to not re-elect George Bush or Jimmy Carter, they couldn’t be trusted with the decision to re-elect or not re-elect Reagan or Clinton? This doesn’t make any sense to me–it gives the message, “We, the people, are only smart enough to make a decision concerning the same person twice. After that, we must be protected from ourselves.”
The argument for term limits is based on the idea that an incumbent who is entrenched for a sufficiently-long period has an inherent advantage in running for re-election, and in ability to give excessive preferences for persons of his own party in the meanwhile. An elected official has discretion to hire most of the people for government service, except perhaps for some cabinet officers, and it’s easy to give such jobs to one’s supporters. Over a long enough period of time, that becomes unfair to members of the other party. The large cadre of people whose careers depend on keeping that official in office provide the major source of fund-raising and political effort for him, and a challenger just can’t match that advantage.
Further, the executive has authority to distribute public-works and other public investment funds where they can do him the most good politically, not necessarily where they’ll do the most public good. Over time, that becomes excessively unfair and deleterious to the greater good. Again, a challenger lacks that power and its benefits.
Plus, there’s the arrogance factor. If an official stays in office long enough, it becomes too easy for him to think that the job, and its authority and perks, are his by divine right, not that he’s been hired to do a job. If he cannot be seriously challenged, that attitude is unlikely to be diminished.
But on the whole, I agree with you that the arguments against term limits are better. The arguments I’ve listed above have only limited practical effect as long as there is adequate public information about the official’s performance. That’s where freedom of the press and strict scheduling of free and fair elections come in.
Kingpengvin: The idea behind the recent term limits laws (which came into being about a decade ago) had to do in part with the massive edge the incumbent has in terms of fundraising, free pr, and using government resources for campaigning (office franking for mail). The percent of incumbents winning was pretty high, most turnover coming through retirement (and some incumbents with a friendly governer began retiring halfway through their final term, so that a replacement of the appropriate party could be appointed, never having to actually run for the job except as an incumbent). Whether or not this is sufficient reason to justify limiting the candidate choices the electorate has is debatable (and many of those who came into office proclaiming the merits of term limits changed their minds as their terms came up to the limits)
Sam Stone: I have always felt that the ability to have proper elections and stable transitions even during stressful and chaotic times was one of the strengths of government in the US, although all of my examples would come from presidential elections - 1864, 1944, 1952. I tend to feel that extending an executives term “for the duration of the emergency” (my words, not yours) would be a bad precedent (not that I have any real fears about the future of democracy in the US)
As for overriding the referendum, I feel that in general it should take a referendum to override a referendum. If term limits were so odius, Giuliani should have hammered that point during the last few elections. If not, then too bad, take a term off and campaign for the term limits to be rescinded and run again.
This very thing is what I am talking about!
The rules change when the new Plan is coming
into effect. We were told that the new world
would be very very different. We all wonder
how many rules will be broken. Lots of people
in government want NY’s mayor to re-up uncontested,
because of the scope and magnitude of the situation.
I can’t begin to tell ya, but yes I can tell ya
a lot of new things are going to happen.
I think this is a big mistake on Guiliani’s part and squandering the political capital he suddenly has. You don’t change a term limit law for one person. I think term limits are a bad idea, but this is bizarre.
Guiliani has a wonderful political future if he wants it, despite his bizarre stint as an art critic. He led New York marvelously in the past few weeks, and will continue to for a few more months, and he even brought down the Gambino crime organization (at the price of letting Sam Gravano free, ewww!). I think that the Bush administration should put him in a post as a civilian leader in the war against terrorism effort, probably as the go to guy. He has all the credentials for it, would probably do quite well at it, and it would keep him out of museums. (Oh, I forgot, he didn’t go to the museums before reviewing the work in them. Hey, we’ve all done damn foolish things, just not quite so publicly.)
He should not go for a third term. But I’ll look at it from Rudy’s side. This controversy swirling is tempting for him, and anyone in power would be ambivalent about it as he is. He sees tremendous tasks and challenges before himself and the mayor after him: accurately counting the casualties and damage, comforting the survivors and the nation, and ultimately rebuilding the financial center of the city, and the world. He as as go-getter wants to see these tasks through. He is known as a law-and order mayor, but he doesn’t want to run away from and leave office with the trmendous problems the city has. No mayor with a real backbone does. For that I give credit to him. I hope that the lawmakers can work out a solution for this unprecendented situation. And let’s hope that the tremendous but temporary euphoria doesn’t go to his head.
Last night on MSNBC Chuck Scarborough was telling Brian Williams about the most Machiavellian of the plots in this direction:
The term limits law, it seems, is written in exacting legalese, stating that no one who has served two consecutive terms can run again. So, if Giuliani were to run & win, and then resign on Dec 30, and become mayor again on Jan 1, he would not be violating the law.
Allegedly, according to Robert Graves, author of The Greek Myths, something very similar to this used to be practiced in regards to kings. The original year, according to him, had 13 months, of 28 days each. This would leave you a remainder of one, at least in the non-leap years. Someone would be king for a year. On the last day, someone else would become king - king for a day. This someone would be sacrificed at the end of the day and the new king would, as it were, arise from the dead on the first day of the new year.
So all Giuliani has to decide is who to sacrifice. Someone needs to build him an Aztec pyramid so as to make a proper sacrificial edifice.