Friday

 

Earwax

I'm doing some sidebar maintenance, one step of which is replacing my banner links to the old “There is No Crisis” group opposing Social Security privatization and “Network for Justice” opposing a particular change in New York's death penalty law which failed (the change, not the group opposing it) about three years ago (nice work, Andrew Cuomo!) with banner links to other causes which I'm currently interested in. I was going to replace one of them with a banner link to a group opposing changing New York's term limit law, and especially changing it so as to apply to sitting officeholders who would otherwise be out of office in 2010. Unfortunately, there is no such group (or at least no web presence I can find for a group) opposing Bloomberg extending his reign.

This is especially funny in the case of New Yorkers for Term Limits, who still, on their front page, have links to a petition opposing the elimination of term limits for city council members and a text box stating:

Attention All NY CITY Voters!
  • We support the current NYC Term Limits Law.
  • We oppose any efforts to change these limits.
But then the first post on their news page is about how, since the organization is just Ronald Lauder trying to look like he's more than one person, they're supporting a temporary law creating a third term for Bloomberg (and the city council members who they previously attacked with vitriol). Other groups, such as Citizens Union, are at least calling for a special election on any change in term limits, but while news stories cite them as opposing the term limit change, they also oppose term limits in general (a reasonable position, though obviously not one I'm convinced of) and their press release is tepid at best, noting that they're open to the underlying term limit extension as long as it's chosen by voters rather than the city council.

I'm a bit surprised that no one is talking about the term limit change in terms of precommitment (this wikipedia article sucks. Unfortunately, it sucks less than the non-existent other references explaining precommitment) problems. Ulysses tied himself to the mast for a reason, and term limits make absolutely no sense when you're willing to change them because the person who will be negatively effected by them has done a good job and has skills that are suited to the present situation.

# posted by washerdreyer @ 10/03/2008 03:46:00 PM
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