Bloomberg machine guts term limits

Voters in New York City twice spoke clearly in the '90s: They want term limits for city officials. Two terms, and you're finished.

But in the world of conservative dinosaurs like Mayor Michael Bloomberg (who just donated $500,000 to the state GOP, despite his claims to independence), rules don't apply. Bloomberg wanted a third term rilly, rilly, rilly, rilly, rilly bad.

So now his friends on City Council have voted to let him seek a rilly, rilly, rilly, rilly, rilly bad third term.

Overturning a perfectly valid voter referendum with a City Council vote? How condescending can you get?

If a referendum is itself illegal, I can understand a City Council overturning it. City Councils have to follow the law. But the term limit referendum was wholly legit.

New York City Council voted to relax term limits - after it defeated a measure that would have put the issue to the voters again. I guess they knew their side would lose.

Because the new law also relaxes term limits for council members, a suit was filed calling it a conflict of interest. However, the Bloomberg machine doesn't agree: Inexplicably, the city's Conflict of Interest Board said this vote doesn't violate such rules.

The media isn't entirely blameless. They've dictated the framing of the term limits issue. In the early '90s, when Democrats controlled Congress, the media liked to prime the pump for congressional term limits. But after 1994 when Republicans seized Congress, the media quickly moved term limits clean off the radar screen.

No bias there, huh? (That's more of my sarcasm, peeps!)

I also find it interesting that Republicans seemed all in favor of term limits when the Democrats controlled Congress, but they never showed much support for the idea once they gained power.

(Source: http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/23/bloomberg.third.term)