mayor for life mike bloomberg

sweet tea · September 2008

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/01/nyregion/01bloomberg.html

this is such BS.

i'm not a big fan of term limits, and, having lived in chicago, i don't have a huge problem with benevolent dictatorships at the mayoral level, but c'mon. letting the folks who are about to get kicked out of office vote to let themselves stay? total BS. have some balls and make it a referendum.

sheesh.

emanon · September 2008

Bill Clinton FOREVER!

whyfi · September 2008

I've been half expecting Bush to try for another term because of the state of affairs...

MOD · September 2008

No sir, I do not agree with any of it!

bullyboy · October 2008

Giuliani tried it too. It's almost a NYC tradition...

mattyblunt · October 2008

bullyboy wrote: Giuliani tried it too. It's almost a NYC tradition...

and who screamed the loudest when Guiliani tried it? Dat's right...Bloomberg (although I do think he does a pretty good job as mayor)

carnivore · October 2008

Flexichick wrote: [quote=bullyboy]Giuliani tried it too. It's almost a NYC tradition...

and who screamed the loudest when Guiliani tried it? Dat's right...Bloomberg (although I do think he does a pretty good job as mayor)
Meh. He's kind of been like Giuliani Lite as far as civil liberties and the NYPD go. He did have the balls at least to make the unpopular decision to raise taxes and get the city's financial house in order.

But I do think term limits are a bad idea, and it would be great to get rid of them permanently at all levels of local government, not just mayor.

escap · October 2008

I'd support abolishing maximum term lengths if we also abolished minimum term lengths. What's so magical about 4 years? If a pol is bungling his job and lacks the support of the populace and government, we ought to be able to kick him out without a formal impeachment process. On the other hand, term limits encourage short term decision making at the expense of future leaders (eg, why fund your pension plan now when you can spend $ on more visibly popular measures and leave the resultant mess to the next guy?). We ought to have a system that rewards good leaders and encourages them to have a stake in long-term results, and doesn't force us to keep around bad leaders who are lame ducks and therefore ineffective.

MOD · October 2008

Hey Escap!!
Welcome back. How's living in the city going for you?

sweet tea · October 2008

enh, i think parliament-style sudden elections (which is what you're describing, i think, escap) end up being more about political maneuvering than anything else. i'd support more frequent, scheduled elections, though.

i do think term limits suck. not sure why people vote for them, honestly. besides the short-term/long-term problem noted above, they strike me as inherently undemocratic. if people would just freakin' VOTE, we could throw the bums out when they're bums and keep them when they're not.

escap · October 2008

Mamacita wrote: Hey Escap!!
Welcome back. How's living in the city going for you?

Thanks!

Once in a blue moon I check back here on these boards just to see how my old borough is doing....

Living in the city is going well. It's working that's the problem. :?

Sweet tea, you may be right--I don't have any experience actually living under a parliamentary system, but I try to think about the way we generally appoint managers of other businesses and organizations. It's rare to have terms in general--they're around so long as they do well, and then they're out! If anything, maybe we should have term limits on legislators, not executives, because legislators are able to gerrymander their way into perpetual reelection and are more easily able to hide what they do, or don't do. Execs are more out there for everyone to see.

mayor for life mike bloomberg

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