At the risk of driving the entire NYC Blog world, whether Left Centric (Mole, Bouldin, Anderson, Jacoby) Center Centric (Maverick Wing: Littlefield; Hack Wing: Yoda) or Afrocentric & Egocentric (Hackshaw) out of their minds (although in some cases, they don‘t have far to go), I am going to declare that the City Council's recent vote to modify the City term limits law is unlikely to affect my vote in next year’s elections, although it may (arguably) somewhat curtail my opportunity to actually use it.
The blogocracy has made good sport of the Olympic level backflips and summersaults of politicians and editorial boards who said they supported terms limits, or, as was usually the case, said a term limit law twice supported by the voters in two referenda should not be overturned without another visit to the public. And even those who support an overturn by any means necessary had to be nonplused by the pretense that this was really a one-time-only measure enacted because if we let the bus stop the bombs might explode.
The hilarity was further enhanced by the process of enactment. An amendment was introduced which would have required a referendum. It failed because some of those ostensibly against changing the law without a referendum voted against it. Then, some of those most committed to the amendment forbidding the law to be changed without the consent of the public voted to allow the law to be changed without the consent of the public.
Then there were the last minute changes of heart, with Darlene Mealy making an emergency trip to the restroom, a la Simcha Felder in the Speaker‘s race, with the slight difference being that Felder made his trip because he’d figured out a way to avoid voting, and Mealy made her trip because she hadn’t.
All very amusing, but one is tempted to ask a few questions.
Why is it that the effort by Ms. Mealy, to bring a $25,000 member item to a block association controlled by her sister, should only now come to light? Because of efforts, apparently by both sides, to leverage her vote? I can hardly blame Ms. Mealy for her bowing at the alter of the Porcelain Goddess, because I’m getting pretty nauseous myself.
And, are any of the backflips really more amusing than Bill DeBlasio, who during his 2005 run for Council Speaker promised his colleagues he’d “move forward with an additional four-year term through the legislative process," now presenting himself as a fount of moral outrage because of his one-time opponent’s effort to fulfill his promise?
As to the politics of the “Referendum Amendment,” I’m confused. If it was really a sham and window dressing, as was suggested by Michael Bouldin (partially because, as was suggested by Dan Jacoby, the time table was unfeasible) wasn’t the proper response of repeal opponents to vote it down? Why then did almost every term limit supporter also support the amendment? Why then was Jessica Lappin the object of such fury (for voting against both the bill and the amendment) when, by their own logic, term limits supporters should have wanted all members to vote the same way she did? On the other hand, is it really all that inconsistent for someone who opposes terms limits to still prefer it be submitted to the people (and therefore vote for both the amendment and the bill)? I mean, isn’t that what the whole debate was about?
I’ll admit, I think the inconsistent votes were just that–inconsistent, but I have to concede that the argument isn’t all that cut and dried.
And, is the spectacle of arguably inconsistent votes really more amusing than watching State Senator Eric Adams trying to imitate populist outrage? A double-dipper, collecting a police captain's pension, Adams once mounted the floor of the State Senate to imitate Cuba Gooding (Junior the actor, not Senior the singer–more’s the pity) screaming “show me the money,” in an unsuccessful effort to convince his colleagues to resist just such populist outrage. State legislators, despite their abysmal records, actually have a pretty good case for a pay raise, but that case flies in the face of arguments about not disregarding the wishes of the public.
The parade of other state legislators clucking their tongues in false piety rings oh so hollow. My own State Assemblywoman, Joan Millman (who I think of quite fondly), publicly berated my City Councilman, David Yassky (who I am slightly less fond of), for his vote to change the law. Frankly, I am puzzled. Coucnilman Yassky will soon be entering his eighth year of service; Assemblywoman Millman will soon be entering her 13th. Even under the newly passed law, if she were on the Council, her tenure would bar her from running for another term.
Is she offering to introduce a term limits Amendment to the State Constitution? Or maybe initiative and referendum, so as to let the voters bring such measures to the ballot?
The fact is she not only is not doing so, but would oppose such measures strenuously, even if recent opinion polls (both the referendums on terms limits having taken place before Assemblywoman Millman was even elected–hey, maybe there should be term limits on referendums) and her mail suggested that her constituents overwhelmingly felt the opposite way.
And why not? She has the right to vote her principles. If she seeks re-election, her record will be subjected to the ultimate plebiscite of voter consent. If the voters are outraged by her choices, they can vote against her and put in someone more willing to submit to their will.
Of course, they probably won’t learn her position, because such measures will never get near enough to the floor for her to have to take one publicly, mostly because of a leadership and set of rules with which she does not seem too unhappy. More importantly, even if voters did learn of such positions, they would probably vote for her anyway, because they agree with most of her other positions, and also because of what they’ve learned in her taxpayer-supported newsletter about the good things she’s brought to the community in the taxpayer-supported budget, not to mention the services provided by her taxpayer-supported staff; all of which are exactly the sort of things regularly cited by term limits supporters as reasons why we need term limits.
And, of course, raising the funds to challenge an incumbent is a daunting task.
But much less so in the City Council, where anyone can sign up for public financing and get quadruple matching funds, and where, incidentally, the rules concerning newsletters being sent out before elections are far stricter than they are in Albany.
Perhaps if Albany enacted a Campaign Finance Law replicating that of the City, I’d be somewhat more inclined to do anything but laugh at the faux outrage of anyone serving in the legislature for over a decade berating members of the Council for seeking to do the same (and my Assemblywoman was hardly the only one so situated unable to restrain themselves from such frivolity).
“But, but, but,” you say, “the public voted twice.”
Yes they did, and the public has the same right to factor that into their votes for Council, as they do with their votes for the Assembly–and thanks to campaign financing, their right to do so at the City level has a far more realistic chance of being translated into actuality.
But for me, this won’t be a factor. And, even if it were a factor, it would not always be dispositive.
Back in 2001, like many in the City, I was repulsed when Rudy Giuliani attempted to declare martial law, and extend his term as an emergency measure in the light of 9/11. I was even more appalled when my default mayoral choice, Mark Green (the enormity of the events having caused me to abandon my real first choice, Alan, ahem, Hevesi), looked at the demographic map of what it would take for him to beat Freddy Ferrer and came out in support of this attempted coup d’etat.
But that didn’t stop me from voting for Green. Ferrer had basically embraced the disaster as a means of permanently relocating jobs to the outer Boroughs, which, whatever the merits, seemed tastelessly premature to a voter who worked in walking distance from the WTC. There were many other issues as well. In the end, I voted for whom I thought would do the best job, and in voting next year for the City Council and other offices, I have no intention of putting my critical faculties into a blind trust on the basis of one vote (and that cuts both ways; if Bill DeBlasio runs for Borough President, I‘ll likely be voting for him) on an issue which has virutally zero impact upon my everyday life (if you want to get me to vote upon the basis of one issue, talk to me about the schools).
However, I do delight at the thought of the cognitive dissonance caused when left-wing bloggers actually submit their calls for a City-wide effort to throw the rascals out into the reality check of an election.
Take, for example, Coney Island, currently represented by the “progressive” blogacracy’s favorite straw man, Dominic Recchia.
Word has it that the Working Families Party is all hepped up to run, as the candidate of “change,” former State Senator Seymour Lachman, “change” apparently now having become a synonym for nostalgia. Reached by reporters at his year-round “summer home” in Long Island, Lachman indicated his interest in returning to his Brooklyn pied-a-terre to make the race.
A former President of the NYC Board of Education, Lachman’s claim on being the exemplar of democratic outrage against the oligarchy has a long history, starting with his being foist upon the public as the handpicked choice of Howie Golden and Clarence Norman in a special election for State Senate which occurred only because they’d previously engineered the incumbent’s selection as a Supreme Court Justice.
The County Committee meeting in which the seat was essentially handed to Lachman had its climax when the third-place candidate, Adele Cohen, in exchange for nods and winks implying a promise of future support (which, in a first for Norman, was actually delivered), switched just enough votes to Lachman to make the nomination litigation-proof, causing Lorraine Coyle-Koppell, the election attorney for the runner-up, Marty Levine, to do a very convincing imitation of Linda Blair in “The Exorcist.”
An election was actually held, but its pretense of being anything but a formality was mooted by an inspection of Levine’s petitions, leaving Lachman essentially unopposed.
Clearly, Lachman has the experience to understand when the fix is in.
But all that doesn’t matter, the important thing is that one candidate is more “progressive” than the other. One candidate has been 100% pro-choice, the other saying, “I’m with you almost all the way on that one,” while rarely having seen an abortion restriction he couldn’t support. One candidate opposed SONDA, while the other voted to extend the City’s Civil Right protections to the transgendered. While both candidates have seen fit to commit crimes against good taste like supporting Noach Dear in an election, there’s a clear and obvious difference here.
Recchia is a moderate social liberal and Lachman is a moderate social reactionary. All the rest is commentary. Even if the term limits vote outraged me, I would not mortgage my judgment to one issue when there are others I consider far more important. Still, the thought of Michael Bouldin and Mole333 urging a vote for Lachman may be worth the price of admission to the sad folly of the one issue Daniel Shays rebellion being contemplated across the web, and even in saner precincts.
I won’t accuse the ideologues of hypocrisy here–they are being as foolishly consistent as ever, though I think if they actually gave it some thought they might conclude otherwise.
In Colorado a few years ago, an anti-gay referendum passed which essentially deprived supporters of equality of the right to have their concerns addressed by their government; it was sort of like terms limits–the curtailment of democratic rights by democratic means (though far more egregious).
Respecting the decision of the people would have meant that the proper way to get rid of this abomination was to go back to the voters. To have done an end run around democracy by seeking relief through the legislature or the courts may have been legal, but by the rules of the “progressive” blogocracy, it was hardly sporting.
And yet in Romer v. Evans, the US Supreme Court struck this provision down.
Are there any “progressives” who’d like to complain?
OK, let’s not load the dice. I’ll switch from rights to public policy.
Virtually every good government group that opposed changing the term limits law nonetheless considers term limits to be bad public policy. Are they saying that following the will of the public is more important than doing what they believe is right?
Citizens Union honcho Dick Dadey happens to be a strong supporter of the Brooklyn Bridge Park plan. Since September of 2006, Brownstone Brooklyn voters have twice voted overwhelmingly to oust their local State Senator, Marty Connor, in what were widely considered by both sides to be proxy referenda on the Park plan. The Working Families Party, which this year was probably dispositive in ousting Connor, endorsed his opponents twice almost solely on that basis.
Does Dadey therefore agree that democracy requires that the government respect the public's choice and scuttle the Park plan? Is Mayor Bloomberg agreeing to accept public financing and all its spending limits?
And goo-goos and progressives certainly were not saying the State Legislature should comply with the will of the public concerning Congestion Pricing. In fact, their position was exactly the opposite. Both the good government community and “progressives” urged lawmaker to have the courage to do what was right. Both stood stone silent and refused to condemn Chris Quinn and Mike Bloomberg for using the same combination of threats, baksheesh and Lord Only Knows What Else (Darlene knows) to lubricate Congestion Pricing through the Editorial Boards and the City Council, and both “progressives" and goo-goos, joined by the editors, roundly condemned Shelly Silver for bowing to the will of his members (who were bowing to the will of their voters) by refusing to do the same.
I support same sex marriage and I support Congestion Pricing, and I hope the legislature passes both, regardless of what the public thinks, because I think they are good public policy. I’d urge my legislators to be courageous and vote my way, except in my neighborhood such actions would take no courage.
Truth be told, most legislators, even with the advantages of incumbency, would rather eat their children than to take a bad vote (by which I mean an unpopular vote, as opposed to one which is merely bad public policy). And, much of the time, that’s probably a good thing.
Doing the right thing in the face of public opposition is a good thing too, but it’s even better when the legislator is forced to help build consensus by selling the unpopular proposal to his or her constituents. My begrudging admiration for Staten Island Councilman Mike McMahon, who is somewhat more socially conservative than I’d prefer, stems largely from watching him courageously defend Congestion Pricing and the 2002 property tax increase without any ifs, ands or buts.
It’s a delicate and difficult balance, building democratic consensus, one that faux-populist measures like term limits serves to undermine.
The proof: What are the odds of a measure this unpopular, which wasn’t the product of a real fiscal emergency (and Bloomberg to the contrary, this ain’t) passing through any legislature except under a shroud of secrecy?
Almost nil. Such things do pass, but not when exposed to so much daylight.
Democracy works, if only because politicians have a strong instinct of self-preservation.
Term limits unhinge politicians from the need for self preservation. Why worry about the voters when you’ll never have to face them again?
And, what’s the cost of voting to repeal term limits in the face of two referendums? “On my God, if I vote to repeal term limits, next year I’ll be out of office?” can easily be countered by “Oh my God, if I vote against repealing term limits, next year I’ll be out of office.”
The instinct for self-preservation was so strong that it resulted in heavy pressure even upon those whose demise was not imminent–hence the revelations about Ms. Mealy. In fact, in the end, there was probably not one vote cast that was contrary to what the Councilmember believed to be in their own personal interest.
Any law that creates a circumstance which systemically puts a politician’s self interest in direct contradiction to the wishes of his or her constituents is by definition a bad one. Moreover, once politicians are unhinged from the need to further answer to their constituents, they are surely capable of far greater attrocities (and don't even get me started about the need to counterbalance our Imperial Mayoralty with a legislative branch which isn't perpetually dizzy from constant excellerated rotation)
In other words, the vote to change term limits in itself shows why term limits should be abolished.