While term limits has clearly given us more turn-over, prying open more positions for people who want to hold elected office, it is less clear how this has actually enhanced democracy. On the contrary it has given the inside players more power to make or break candidates as young turk is separated from lame duck by a single re-election cycle. The institutional players get more say not less as each lame duck spends fully half of their entire elected life span positioning themselves for scarce openings in the some non-term limited position either in the public or the private sector. Clear winners are rich guys like Ron Lauder, who bought the present system, and the current Mayor, unconcerned about their financial and professional futures.

Incumbency is powerful in any democracy. In this case the "incumbent" is term-limits itself. Regardless of how poorly it performs as a governmental structure we are stuck with it until such time as term limits are lifted, either by the elected representatives or a referendum. Ironically though, a term limited City Council and a term-limited Mayor, have little fear of eliminating or amending the current system. There will be rock throwers, most of whom aspire to office themselves, much like Ron (son of Estee) Lauder himself, but are unable to either buy the position outright or to win an office against an incumbent who will smear such a change if done by elected representatives but accept such a change if done by referendum. I'm not convinced that referendums are more inherently democratic.

Neither am I convinced that better, more democratic, decisions are made by the term limited either looking for the keys to the rest room in their first term or aligning their next soft landing in their second, than were made by the long-term incumbents in the bad old days by the "machine" and the Board of Estimate.

The constant churning of City government stimulates pandering for votes and makes the electeds much more subservient to the interests of the institutional players and staffs. I does create more open slots to contest but why, if you have a politician you support who is term-limited, is that more democratic?

Most of these Council members have already set themselves up with various lobbyists, vendors, etc. & will have no problem getting another job. But they still want to hold onto their power. They need another 4 years to stick it to the public & live off of the public trough. If you look at the way they run their offices & see who they hire , it's a cottage industry. The public is being hood winked by them, it's about time we wake up. YES TO TERM LIMITS. Enough is Enough.

He claims he's done as of the end of next year, but hasn't commented about the reports that he's working on a deal to extend term limits via the City Council.

I oppose term limits, believe they are the wrong solution to the problem, and voted against them since 'way back in '93. Having said that, my question to those who want the Council to extend them is quite simple:
By what moral authority do you overturn, by legislative fiat, the twice-expressed will of the people?

Since when does morality have anything to do with politics? Is the only way to ever change the term limit provisions by another referendum? Who says that referendum's trump anything, morally or practically? Is that in the state constitution? California and the west coast states have lots of referendums and lots of stupid decisions handcuffing future governments to show for it. There is nothing undemocratic about representative democracy and nothing more democratic about referendumbs. I for one would love to see a City Government with enough stones to end term limits. So what if another referendumb puts them back in place, its still a dumb idea.

And, yeah most of these people are set up, thats precisely my point, instead of governing they have been spending their time setting themselves up. And so will the next generation. If they could run again on the merits of what they did in office maybe they would make a couple decisions based on what is good for the city. We are only a couple of turns into this thing. After fifty years of term limits the entire city will be turned over to the people setting them up for the next gig.

The only reason the city appears to be doing so well is because of bloomberg's re-zoning and gentrification. Meanwhile, the middle class can barely afford to live here anymore. I've had enough of Bloomberg. I will be so angry if he is the democratic candidate in 2009. With democrats like him, who needs republicans?