Voters will get a third chance to make their feelings known on term limits after the City Charter Revision Commission voted this month to put the contentious issue back on the ballot in November.

Through a voter initiative in 1993, a two-term limit for city elected officials was created. In 1996, voters again went to the polls in a referendum and nixed a plan by members of the City Council to extend the limit to three terms.

The term limit debate heated up again in 2008 when Mayor Michael Bloomberg, citing the struggling economy, successfully mounted an effort to extend term limits through a Council law which benefitted himself, the Council members and citywide office holders. In the 2009 city elections, the mayor, a number of Council members and three of the five borough presidents, including Borough President Helen Marshall, were re-elected to a third term.

The commission voted earlier this month to put the issue back in the hands of voters.

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Commission Votes to Put Term Limits on November Ballot in New York City
From The New York Times

Should New York City leaders be limited to two terms in office? Should the fine for violating conflict-of-interest laws increase? Should the city reduce the number of signatures required to get on a ballot?

New Yorkers will have the opportunity to decide those questions in November, a commission responsible for recommending changes to the city’s charter voted on Monday night.

But a last-minute effort to deny current incumbents a chance to run for a third term failed at the meeting.

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Debate renewed on term limits
From The Richmond Times Dispatch

In 1994, House Republicans led by Speaker Newt Gingrich pushed for term limits on members of Congress as part of the "Contract with America."

The measure was put to a vote but failed to muster the two-thirds necessary to advance an amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

This year, the idea of term limits has again gained some traction across the nation, as midterm elections approach amid an anti-Washington mood percolating among some independents, Republicans and members of the tea-party movement.

Selected challengers outside Virginia are linking incumbency with what they see as the ills of an overreaching government -- and proffering term limits as a solution.

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Put city first, not power: Frankel should give up her campaign for a third term.
From The Palm Beach Post

It's not hard to tell West Palm Beach Mayor Lois Frankel that she should leave office in March, when her second term ends. Several residents did so pointedly at last week's city commission meeting.

What's hard is to get Mayor Frankel to listen.

While commissioners agonize over rude remarks flung at her, the mayor had no trouble disparaging the speakers. "I would never base a decision based on an anecdotal experience, an organized effort by the tea party or some extreme right-wing group who I believe was there last night to come in and say a few inarticulate, nasty things to me," she said. "Those kind of activities just embolden me, really and truly. It had the opposite reaction on me."

For good measure, she added, "I thought the people were idiotic."

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Term limits can rein in abuse
From The Time Union

Abe Lincoln must be turning over in his grave. To say that there is corruption in politics today has become redundant.

Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's office earlier this year filed a civil lawsuit charging that state Sen. Pedro Espada siphoned $14 million for personal and political use from the Bronx health care clinic he founded.

Espada is under investigation by the Bronx district attorney regarding whether he lives in his district and also is the target of a federal corruption probe.

These accusations, coupled with the recent call to oust Espada from the Democratic Party, have prompted him to (paraphrasing Samuel Johnson) use that last refuge of a scoundrel -- the race card.

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Montgomery activist proposes term limits for county officials
From The Washington Post

A Republican activist who surprised Montgomery County's political establishment two years ago with a successful referendum making property taxes harder to increase has revived another idea he hopes will shake up local politicians: term limits.

Robin Ficker, a GOP candidate for the County Council, submitted a stack of 16,000 signatures Monday to Montgomery officials to get a question on the ballot in November that would add term limits to the county's charter. If 10,000 are certified, his measure will go to voters.

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Key West Palm Beach commissioners now oppose revisiting term limits on November ballot
From The Palm Beach Post

WEST PALM BEACH — Chances that term-limited Mayor Lois Frankel can run for a third term in 2011 took a hit today.

City Commissioners Jeri Muoio and Kimberly Mitchell now say they oppose putting a question on the November ballot asking voters if they want to extend the mayoral limits from two terms to three. Muoio and Mitchell had been sympathetic to putting the question before voters on the general election ballot.

With Commissioner Molly Douglas also opposed, that means at least three of five commissioners are against setting a referendum on extending term limits for the mayor. If voters don’t approve a change to the city charter, Frankel can’t seek a third term in March.

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Schrader: Term limits make sure state voters clean up government
From The Time Herald

Endless analyses are to be had from Michigan's primary elections. What quickly comes to mind, however, is thank God Michigan has terms limits. They make hauling the political rubbish to the curb mandatory.

Term limits put a check on the power of incumbency. If not for them, the same group of state leaders that plunged Michigan to the economic bottom would be in charge for what -- another four, eight, 20 years?

There has been growing chatter among Michigan's political good old boys and their media friends that the foundation of Michigan's eight-year economic crisis is lack of experienced political leadership in Lansing. This, they claim, is due mainly to the state's term limits -- six years for the House and eight years for the Senate.

What nonsense.

Funny, you never hear any talk that limiting those in the governor's office to eight years is any kind of problem. After eight years of the Granholm administration, a period that saw Michigan's collapse from one of the nation's top five economic powerhouses, to second from the bottom, they think change can't happen fast enough.

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New group strives to protect term limits in West Palm Beach
From The Palm Beach Post

WEST PALM BEACH — The group pushing to extend mayoral term limits can now expect some organized push-back.

Businessmen Richard Shepherd and Jon Fogt formed a political action committee on Wednesday called Keep West Palm Term Limits. The group will raise money between now and November to educate voters on why they believe an eight-year limit for mayors must be preserved.

The formation comes a day after a majority of the city commissioners said they would be willing to place a question on the November ballot to let voters decide whether to give Mayor Lois Frankel and her successors a chance to try for a third term, even though the petition drive to extend term limits is failing.

“We passed a resolution in 1991 that put term limits on mayors for eight years, and there’s a really good reason for that,” Shepherd said.

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Charlie Rangel is the Poster Child for Term Limits
From Fox News

As the House prepares to launch on Thursday a rare, public ethics inquiry into alleged misdeeds by New York Rep. Charlie Rangel, it is clear that Rangel remains defiant. He is fighting the House Ethics Committee tooth and nail, claiming that he wants to “make certain, before this election, people know who Charlie Rangel is.” Most Americans know who Rangel is: the poster child for term limits.

Rangel, who has served nearly 40 years in the House of Representatives, including a tour as head of the powerful Ways and Means Committee, illustrates the corruptive nature of political tenure.

Ask those who keep watch over our congressional scoundrels for the most common characteristic of nominees to the annual Most Corrupt list, and they will nominate prolonged service. Indeed, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) has listed Rangel as one of our 15 most corrupt politicians since 2008.

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Term limits on Naperville ballot
From The Daily Herald

Naperville voters will get to decide whether to limit how long their leaders serve.

Councilmen on Tuesday approved putting a referendum on the Nov. 2 ballot asking voters if they want to prevent councilmen and the mayor from serving more than three terms consecutively.

The Naperville Voters Education League brought the issue to the council in hopes of getting it on the ballot with five positive votes in lieu of continuing to try to collect roughly 8,600 signatures on a petition.

"Let the people decide for themselves," said the group's leader, Bill Eagan. "It's democracy in action."

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8th hopefuls talk term limits, cutting spending
From The Jackson Sun

MCKENZIE — Conservative candidates for the 8th Congressional District seat talked about term limits, cutting spending and bipartisanship at a forum here Tuesday night.

The forum at McKenzie High School included Republicans Stephen Fincher, Dr. George Flinn, Dr. Ron Kirkland and Randy Smith as well as independents Donn Janes and Mark Rawles.

The candidates said they are for large cuts to government and largely supported tax cuts to stir up new jobs and economic development. They either supported earmark reform or eliminating earmarks all together.

Most said they would look to a new, potentially majority conservative bloc in the House to help them push through the changes they want or talked up their personal ability to get it done.

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Peckinpaugh pledges support for Congressional term limits
From Connecticut Plus

Janet Peckinpaugh, a Republican candidate for Congress in Connecticut's 2nd Congressional District, pledged to introduce legislation to create a Constitutional Amendment which would limit the number of terms a United States Congressman and United States Senator can serve in those positions.

During a meeting of before the Colchester Republicans, Peckinpaugh distinguished herself from other candidates by stating, unequivocally, her support for a constitutional amendment that limits the terms of both Senators and Members of the House of Representatives.

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