RuN ON & ON
Councilman says extend term limits – again!
A CANDIDATE for City Council speaker has drafted a bill to extend term limits for the Council to three terms.
Councilman Jumaane Williams plans to introduce the legislation by the end of the year to allow Council members to serve three four-year terms instead of the current two, if voters approve the idea in a referendum.
Williams is among eight candidates running for Council speaker — all of whom have said they’d support giving their fellow pols a third term.
“This is only about what’s best for the city and best for good government,” said Williams (DBrooklyn), who plans to release the bill Monday as part of a broader proposal outlining his plans for the speakership.
The legislation would allow three terms for the Council, while keeping the max at two for the mayor, public advocate, controller and borough presidents.
It would take effect if voters ratified it at the ballot box during the next city general election, in 2021.
At a recent forum for candidates running for speaker, who will be elected by the 51-member Council in January, Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez (D-Manhattan) broached the idea of a third term and the rest of the field said they’d support it.
The platform Williams is releasing also calls for $100 million to offer teen jobs to everyone who applies, plus free SAT prep classes and college tuition.
He also says the Council should use subpoena power to haul city officials before its hearings to testify.
Former Mayor Michael Bloomberg got term limits extended in 2008 to three terms for himself and other city office holders, a move that was fiercely opposed by many elected Democrats at the time. In 2010, voters approved a ballot referendum reestablishing a two-term limit.
Critics have hit the push among speaker candidates to extend term limits, noting voters have repeatedly backed a twoterm rule.
But Williams said it makes sense to have different limits for different offices so that the mayor and Council members aren’t all jockeying for higher office at the same time, and that voters may buy it if the case was made.
“It takes away just some of the politics,” he said. “People are angry at elected officials, and they have rightful frustration, but they’re also not stupid and we shouldn’t speak to them as if they are.”