New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg today formally announced his support for the extension of term limits from two to three terms. He also made clear his intention to sign a term extending measure should it pass the NYC City Council and to run again for Mayor once it becomes law.

Personally I am against term limits of any kind in a democracy. People have the power to either extend an elected officials tenure or to fire that official come election time. We all know it’s not easy to find good help, particularly on the political level. If people approve of the job an official is doing, they should be able to keep that official. Now an argument against this is that without term limits, corruption can embed itself in the system if an elected official is allowed to stay on in perpetuity. There is some validity to this, but I still don’t think it outweighs the public’s right to retain the official of their choosing in the election, particularly when they have a better idea of how that person will perform their job, through past experience, than any challenger to the incumbent candidate. However, an important remedy to corruption could be the adoption of a Vote of No Confidence, used in many democracies around the world, to fire an official should they start doing a bad job.

You can takepart in learning more about election reforms by logging onto Reform Elections.org.

LINKS:

Gothamist: Bloomberg Makes His Third Term Limits Pitch

NY Times: Bloomberg says he wants a third term as Mayor

Queens Chronicle: Bloomberg to topple term limits