A Brooklyn assemblyman will now try to do what the City Council refused: Let the people decide about term limits.
Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries (D–Fort Greene) will introduce legislation next week that would require any changes to term limit laws — like the one passed by the City Council last week — to be decided by a public referendum.
“Since the City Council failed to do the right thing and put forth a referendum on term limits, the state legislature should step in to protect the integrity of our democracy,” Jeffries said, referring to the Council’s 29-22 vote last Thursday to allow Mayor Bloomberg — and more than two dozen member of the Council, too! — to seek a third term.
“We are the last line of defense against this undemocratic power grab.”
Jeffries’s bill has 15 Democratic co-sponsors, but for now, none of them is Speaker Sheldon Silver, who will decide if the bill ever sees the light of day.
“As with any legislation, this will be reviewed by our committee process,” said Dan Weiller, a spokesman for Silver.
Even if Silver is quiet, Jeffries’s bill has support in the obvious places, namely from members of the Council who voted against the mayor’s bid for a third term.
“Assemblyman Jeffries made a fine effort,” said Councilman Bill DeBlasio (D–Park Slope), whose own bill to require a public term-limit vote was derailed by Council Speaker Christine Quinn.
“Albany could [now] look at this and say the people’s will was overrun and that there was a railroading of the legislative process.”
But this issue has created strange bedfellows and shifting alliances. Some of the usual suspects who have lambasted the mayor for ramrodding the term limits bill through are not ready to embrace Jeffries’s proposal.
“I am concerned about the state weighing in on what is a city political issue,” said Dick Dadey, executive director of Citizens Union.
“The state exercises a great amount of control over the city of New York and I’m hesitant to support another encroachment over the city to manage itself.”
