Term limits circus a loss for democracy (Metro NY)

In case you haven’t heard, New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg is pulling out all the stops to change the city’s term-limits law so he can seek a third term in office. The city council held public hearings last Thursday and Friday, and I dropped in for a visit:

Last week’s City Council hearings on term limits were, to put it nicely, a fiesta of convoluted arguments and strange bedfellows. Starting with the three competing options on the floor — lift the eight-year limit by council fiat, hold a special voter referendum or leave things as is — things only got more surreal as advocates of each position tried to explain why their side, and not the other guy’s, represented the “will of the people.”… [read more]