Back to the Future 2021

Two Editorials Assail

Charter Commission

Over 11-Year Delay

On Term Limit End




Once again, we take pen in hand (figuratively) to criticize the actions and inactions of the Charter Revision Commission. We do that not because there is overwhelming public interest in the subject at this time, but because there is an issue of trust and credibility here which should be discussed openly.

Today, the Post joined the Daily News in sharp editorial criticism of the Commission. We quote extensively from these hard-hitting editorials. If you wish, you can click on News and Post for the full text.

Under the headlline CHARTER CHANGE CHOKE, The Post laments: "The New York City Charter Revision Commission concluded its work last week, delivering a final product that amounts to a sadly missed opportunity.

"When the commission formed last spring ... headed by CUNY Chancellor Matthew Goldstein, the sky was the limit on what might be brought before voters in November. But the big issues were term limits and governmental structure -- i.e., whether the city might run more effectively without such offices as borough president and public advocate.

"What will be on the ballot this fall?

"An opportunity to endorse "term limits" again -- which won't be fully functional until 2021, because current elected officials are grandfathered in.

"And nothing at all to do with structural reform; that's been punted to the next charter commission, whenever that might be convened.

"Even though voters have twice called for a two-term limit for elected municipal offices, some incumbents could remain in place for a decade..."

The Daily News has published three editorials on the subject, trying vainly to persuade the Charter Commission before the 15-member group made its final decision. On August 26, the newspaper was scathing in its criticism.

"New Yorkers have twice previously voted for the two-term option. They'd surely do so again if given the opportunity.

"But the panel, chaired by CUNY Chancellor Matthew Goldstein, chose instead to give the public the back of its hand. It voted to put on the November ballot a proposition that would set two terms for everyone - except, incredibly, for incumbent officeholders.

"They alone would be permitted to run three times; never mind that some of these same Council members supported the 2009 overthrow of the voters' will.

"How this misbegotten result came about is a study in the misapplication of power.

"The panel's 15 members included lawyers, religious leaders, educators, city planners and former Council members, among others.

"Some, like the Rev. Joseph McShane, Fordham University's president, understood what they were assigned to do: Give voters a two-term option.

"But others, like Staten Island County Clerk Stephen Fiala, denied voters the choice they deserve based on his own opposition to term limits. He called them "antithetical to our way of life."

"Still others brought extraneous considerations to bear: Commission Vice Chairman John Banks, a vice president at Con Ed, asserted that requiring incumbents to abide by a two-term maximum would somehow discriminate against minorities. That, too, should have been an issue for voters.

"Outrageously, three commission members - David Chen, Betty Chen and Carlo Scissura - failed even to show up for the meeting. They are said to have been on vacation. That's no excuse. After accepting the responsibility of shaping the very future of democracy in New York, they damn well should have cast votes.

"Finally, Angela Freyre, a vice president at Nielsen who also serves on the city's Conflicts of Interest Board, lacked the courage to vote for or against a measure backed by Goldstein that would have limited the number of Council members who were granted the favor of three terms.

"After expressing wrongheaded qualms about the legality of the compromise, she abstained, dooming the halfway measure.

"Every single commissioner should have to vote, as all had sworn to do in accepting the post. That's the most fundamental responsibility of the job. They should reconvene when, gee, they find it convenient and do it right.

"No absences, no abstentions, no excuses."

OUR VIEW OF THE DISPUTE

The Commission, appointed by Mayor Bloomberg on March 3, produced its final report on August 27, just in time for its recommendations to be placed on the ballot for the November 2 election.

The issue which generated the most controversy was term limits for city elected officials. Although two referenda (in 1993 and 1996) had supported a limit of two four-year terms for the three city-wide offices, five borough presidents and 51 councilmembers, the Council, in October 2008 at the Mayor's insistence, overruled the Charter adopted in referenda to allow all 59 elected officials to seek a third term.

Mayor Bloomberg promised at the time to appoint a Charter Revision Commission in 2010 to put term limits on the ballot for the public to decide the issue. The Commission did that, but in an effort to please incumbents at the expense of allowing the public to decide the issue promptly, postponed the effective date (the first year in which a second-termer would be unable to seek a third term) to 2021, which is somewhere over the rainbow, way up high, far away as politics is concerned.

The Mayor persuaded CUNY chancellor Matthew Goldstein to chair the fractious commission. He is a Ph.D. in mathematics and a highly capable administrator, who in eleven years has enormously strengthened the City University. He is not a politician, and it was John Banks of Con Edison, the vice-chair, whose views prevailed in the end.

The panel was laced with enemies of term limits, who would just as soon have done away with them entirely if they had the nerve. They had no particular sense that the public will had been tampered with in 2008, and were pleased to reward those who had over-ruled the two public referenda by giving them an extra term for themselves. To add to the deal, they took Councilmembers who had not even been elected in 2008 and gave them a third term as well. Bonanza.

There was an existential rationale for extending Mayor Bloomberg's eligibility: he had done a competent job, was regarded as more qualified than his putative opponents, and the public could make a rational choice as to whether they wanted to keep him as mayor. They narrowly retained him, and the opposition was heavily fueled by his unpopular extension of term limits. On the other hand, the Councilmembers are largely lightly known, are elected from districts gerrymandered for their protection, and until 2009, had almost always been re-elected handily. The class elected in 2005 would in no way have been missed if they were required to seek other employment opportunities in 2013, if the public voted for two terms.

After eight years on the Council, an able (or a more limited) member can run for higher city office, or the state legislature (which has no term limits, which is one reason it is regarded as the most dysfunctional legislature in the United States). He can also be appointed to a job. David Yassky, for one, was appointed to chair the Taxi and Limousine Commission after losing a race for Comptroller. He cast a key vote in favor of extending term limits, although he was not personally seeking a third term on the Council.

There is more to be said about the maneuvering that led to the unfortunate attempt to postpone reality by eleven years. The leaders of the Commission did not understand what the struggle was really about: the popular will and the necessity to resist retrograde attempts to subvert it or postpone it into oblivion.

The issue was not two terms or three; that is a question that people can properly dispute and to which there is no easy answer. The issue was whether the public should be given a chance to overrule the 2008 loophole coup d'etat. The voterse should have been given the opportunity to make that decision; instead the insiders, know-nothings and absentees, amajority of the Commission, nine out of fifteen, denied them that right.

It is a shame to reject the work of honest, decent and industrious people who gave their time, without salary, to work on important public business. However, the attempt by some to set themselves up as masters of the universe cannot go unnoticed. Most of the nine are politically unsophisticated and did not fully understand what the issues were. They are not experts in government. The few that did know should be ashamed of themselves.

They should stick to their day jobs, and leave the Charter to people who appreciate and respect democracy.

Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied

Commission Delays Two-Term Limit

For City Officials Until A.D. 2021,

However the Public Votes This Year


The Charter Revision Commission appointed by Mayor Bloomberg voted last night to postpone by eleven years the effective date when a two-term limit would take effect, even if the voters approve it in referendum this fall.

After a motion to put the eight-year limit into effect now was defeated, (it received six votes, eight being needed to pass), and a so-called 'hybrid' motion for a 2017 effective date also failed with six votes, Commission Chairman Matthew Goldstein brought the 2021 date up for a vote and it was approved 12-0, although it was not a compromise between the other two alternatives, but mandated an even longer delay in carrying out the decision made in the public referendum.

On the two previous motions, the chairman had called the roll and voted last. On the 2021 proposal he called on himself first and dramatically voted 'Yes'. The eleven other members present followed suit.

A large majority of the witnesses who testified last night supported implementation of the referendum at the next Council election, scheduled for 2013. The speaker for a delay was Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, who had taken a leading role in supporting the two-term limit in 2008. He did not explain why he changed his mind, but as a mayoral candidate in 2013, he will be seeking support from the legislators whose eligibility he sought to prolong.

The effect of this postponement is to confer a benefit on a small group of Councilmembers, some of whom voted in 2008 to extend their eligibility. Others, who voted No on the change, allegedly on principle, will also have the opportunity to seek a third term, and it is likely that most of them will avail themselves of that privilege. The extension to 2021 will give the freshmen, now in their first year on the Council, the right to serve twelve years before there will be an open seat..

The rationale behind this gift of time is that, since in 2009 the three-term limit was in effect, the candidates ran with the expectation that they would be entitled to seek three terms and the city is in good faith bound to honor their belief. Those members first elected in 2005 would require the gift of a third term to have them serve into 2017. However, the public will presumably by 2010 have voted three times (1993 and 1996 were the first two) for a two-term limit.

The theory that there is a duty to fulfill the expectations of the ambitious appears as harebrained to me as it may sound to you, but it was expressed by at least one Commissioner last night, and it was the rationalization of others. Try to think of another justification for prolonging the implementation of the decision of the voters for a period comparable to serious prison time.

The fact is that, even if the voters approve a two-term limit in November, the Commission has arrogated to itself the power to frustrate that decision for eleven years. The proposal was offered to allow the public to decide the effective date of the two-term limit, whether at once (2013), 2017 or 2021. This idea was ignored; how can the people be trusted to make a decision of such magnitude? Don't the mayoral appointees on the Commission know what is best for the masses?

The individual members of the Commission are, by and large, reasonably intelligent, not particularly politically sophisticated, and honorable New Yorkers. The chair is a distinguished public servant. How could all these bright people have gone so wrong? Look at Vietnam and numerous situations since then when our country has made decisions which turned out to be wrong. But those important issues had two sides and complicated facts. In this case, the facts are clear and the argument completely one-sided. I invite anyone to submit a column explaining why 2017 or 2021 is the appropriate time for a 2010 referendum to take effect. We'll publish it.

The bottom line here is that some people wanted to take care of some other people they know. And they were able to convince enough naive colleagues so that they could do it.

The remedy here is relatively simple: another referendum, with an effective date written into it so no Commission can substitute its wishes for the voters' decision by fiddling with implementation and postponing a simple reform for over a decade.

The unanswered question is Rule 17-C. Who will bell the cat? Who will step forward and take the initiative to see that the will of the people is implemented, whatever it may be. Now is the time to begin consideration of that question. It has been attributed to Edmund Burke in 1795. No one, however, really knows who said it first: "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good [people] to do nothing."

To those of you who think, what difference does this make, two terms or three, you have a point. The issue, however, is not two or three terms. The issue is fairness; first the Mayor and Council circumventing the Charter in 2008 for their own benefit, and now the Commission trying to circumvent the referendum of 2010, whether they know it or not.

Americans, and New Yorkers are Americans, like to play fair, and don't like to be disregarded or manipulated. That is what underlies this controversy. It is the same nagging issue that sharply reduced the majority the competent mayor should have received after two successful terms. Our recommendation: respect the will of the people.

"Justice Delayed is Justice Denied". Britain's Prime Minister Gladstone said it in 1868 addressing Parliament as Queen Victoria's prime minister.

The City of New York should not provide golden parachutes. Not in dollars, not in years. Let the new elected officials take their places, and may they serve the public, not themselves.

Eleven Years A-Waiting

The Charter Revision Commission, appointed by Mayor Bloomberg on March 3 to recommend changes in the City Charter, has brought forth its recommendations. In order to appear on the November ballot, the changes must be submitted to the City Clerk sixty days prior to the election. This year that date is September 3.

The principal purpose of the Commission was to give the people a chance to vote on term limits for elected officials. In a referendum in 1993, the voters approved a charter amendment limiting city officials to two consecutive elective terms, usually eight years. In 1996, the voters affirmed their earlier decision, rejecting an alternative limit of three terms.

The Charter change was made effective in 2001, at which time a large majority of Council seats turned over. New members were elected, who under the law could serve for no more than two terms. If not for the Charter changes approved by the voters, most of the old councilmembers would have been re-elected and the new members would not have run. In fact, eight of the newly elected were relatives of their predecessors, dynastic succession not being prohibited by the Charter.

In 2008, the elected officials who would have been ineligible to seek re-election the next year decided that their services would be needed for many years to come. At the urging of the mayor, who said his leadership was required because of the impending fiscal crisis, the Council voted, 29 - 22, to override the two referenda and extend their own eligibility for an additional four years. This decision was upheld in court.

Public dissatisfaction with this maneuver was demonstrated by the unprecedented defeat of five councilmembers in districts where re-election had usually been automatic. The narrow margin of Mayor Bloomberg's victory over his opponent was attributed more to voter dissatisfaction over the manipulation of the Charter than to complaints about his administration of the city, which was widely regarded as satisfactory.

During the campaign, Mayor Bloomberg promised to appoint a Charter Commission to review the city's governmental structure and, specifically, to address the issue of term limits. He had previously promised to appoint such a commission in 2008, but in the press of business found it impossible to adhere to that commitment. This time, with the third term under his belt, he did appoint a commission, which is making recommendations to be placed on the ballot in 2010.

The Commission consisted of 15 members, led by the widely respected chancellor of the City University, Dr. Matthew Goldstein. Its most important recommendation had been predicted, to give the voters another chance to vote on term limits. Another was to forbid the Council to vote to overrule the voters to extend their own eligibility. This was the public locking of the barn door, after the third term horse was stolen in 2008. That was the proper and appropriate thing for the Commission to do. It should have been provided for in the initial referenda, but Ronald Lauder's lawyers overlooked it, perhaps because they believed that no one would have the nerve to throttle a decision made in a democratic process involving a million voters. If they believed that, they were mistaken.

Having made the inevitable decision to submit the issue once again to the public (that, after all, was why they were appointed in the first place), the Commission then proceeded to commit the inexplicable blunder of not making its decision effective until 2021, which is eleven years into the future. Councilmembers elected in 2005 and 2009 would be eligible to seek a third term, and the two term limit would not become effective until the members to be elected in 2013 took their seats.

If the people are to regain the right to limit Councilmembers' terms, their decision should be put into effect at the next Council election, which may be in 2011 or 2013, depending on when census data is reported. The eight year delay appears to be an attempt to subvert the Commission's own decision, which its members may not have been too happy to make, some of them being creatures of the comfortable establishment, quite content to see members linger in office until they are thoroughly superannuated.

Some of this is hard to understand. If a matter is submitted to referendum, as this issue will be in 2010, the decision of the people, whatever it may be, should go into effect as soon as possible. If the matter involves eligibility for election, it should go into effect for the election immediately following the referendum. The eight-year delay in ineligibility, not allowing it to go into effect until 2021, makes no sense. First, it is an invitation to change the charter again within the next ten years, to repeal or to further extend term limits. Second, it unjustly allows incumbents to seek third terms when the people have again rejected such privilege for a handful of office holders. Third, at the very least, the public should have the opportunity to vote on whether the charter change goes into effect at the next election or not until 2021.

The right to decide this issue was snatched from the public by the 2008 self-perpetuating dance of the incumbents. The proposed charter change restores that right to the people. It is a normal expectation for charter changes to go into effect as soon as practicable. Whether the effective date of this restoration of voting rights should be delayed by ten years is a separate issue which the public has a right to decide.

The Charter Commission has generally done good work, and its members have served long hours without pay. We do not suggest that they are corrupt or derelict in their responsibilities. But the ten year delay in implementing the public's decision on term limits is inexplicable. It suggests an imperialist power agreeing to grant independence to a colony in ten years, by which time the natives may be expected to learn how to govern themselves.

Such a time-consuming process is not only unnecessary but insulting to the public. If we are capable of deciding how many terms our elected officials can serve, we are capable of deciding, if we choose to, that our wishes shall go into effect at the next election for Councilmembers, not a decade into the future.

There is still time for the commission to correct what appears to be a manifest error. We hope they do so, in order for the voters to make their decision effective, whatever it may be. It will require leadership by the Chair and farsighted commissioners to modify the mandatory ten-year delay. Otherwise, the cause of the rule of law and returning the decision on term limits to the voters will have been subverted. That would lead to a loss of confidence in the commission and the important issues it is expected to consider in 2011.

Do the right thing.