A Debate on Democracy at the Sausage Factory

The battle over the City Council legislation to amend the Term Limits Law offers a reminder of why, when an old District Council 37 lobbyist felt a tense negotiation desperately needed some comic relief, he would plead with legislators to consider the bill at issue "on the merits."

The Chief-Leader/Michel Friang PACKING THE HOUSE: Though their signs expressed populist sentiments, many of those who got the available seats in the City Council Chambers for a term limits hearing Oct. 16 were supporting Mayor Bloomberg's attempt to gain a shot at a third term without a voter referendum.

It is not that the various players on both sides of the debate, which after two days of Council hearings last week could reach its first climax with a vote Oct. 23, are unable to make virtuous arguments for their positions. Few of them, however, do not have some stake in the game that goes beyond their proclamations in the name of good government or the city's best interest.

That reality tends to breed a certain cynicism among the people who work in or cover City Hall. Outrage about what might be called an uprising of the plutocracy — newspaper publishers and investment bankers joining arms with Mayor Bloomberg in a revolt against the voters — is tempered by the suspicion that the Council vote is already a done deal or the Mayor wouldn't have thrown his legacy into the breach.

Beliefs Won't Stand in Their Way

An extra helping of cynicism gets ladled on because some of the most-prominent opponents of the manner in which Mr. Bloomberg is trying to amend the Term Limits Law will go with the flow if he succeeds.

Thus, the Daily News editorial page on Oct. 16, the first day of the Council hearing, ran photos of 11 Council Members who oppose the change but won't rule out seeking re-election to a third term if it is approved, under the headline, "Term-limit hypocrites."

One might have leveled the same accusation against that very editorial page, given its own past opposition to changes in the law and its encouragement of the Mayor to pursue the change in a manner that he himself once characterized as "disgusting."

But righteous anger doesn't travel well in the world of politics, where the governing philosophy brings to mind the joke about the less-than-kosher roulette wheel: "It may be crooked, but it's the only wheel in town."

It's no accident that some of the loudest voices against the Mayor's power play belong to people who will be major players in next year's elections. Among them are U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner, the early front-runner in the succession sweepstakes until Mr. Bloomberg re-nominated himself; civil rights attorney Norman Siegel, who has his eye on the Public Advocate's chair, and Council Member Bill de Blasio, whose designs on the Brooklyn Borough President's job are threatened by a possible continuation of the Markowitz Dynasty.

But just because they, too, have selfish motives doesn't mean they're wrong.

It's hard to quarrel with their argument that a law that has been adopted and then reaffirmed by the voters should only be changed by those voters. Some of the leading voices in support of permitting the Council to amend the law didn't try to dispute that position during last Thursday's hearing; they instead questioned the wisdom of the law itself or contended that the overriding issue should be that Mr. Bloomberg has demonstrated his unique qualifications for dealing with the financial crisis the city will be confronting and should be given the opportunity to serve another term to do so.

But that opportunity already exists: if a majority of voters agree with that sentiment, they could approve a referendum that would permit an extension to a maximum of three terms for the Mayor, other citywide officials and the 51 Council Members.

Picking His Fight

Mr. Bloomberg regards this as an unnecessary and inconvenient step, and clearly believes he has a better chance to persuade the voters when running against an actual opponent than against their own past judgment.

His Counsel, Anthony Crowell, testified that the heart of the matter was whether an extension to three terms was "in the best interests of the city. If you believe the answer is 'yes,' as we do, we urge you to vote for this legislation and not hold it hostage to process concerns that have no legal basis."

He was referring to the fact that the Council has the power to change the law rather than leaving it to the voters. This would instantly crystallize next year's races, rather than adhering to messy past precedent, which would require the formation of a Charter Commission, its drafting of recommendations, and the scheduling of a special election. Add in the need for the Justice Department to review the process to ensure that it does not violate Voting Rights Act provisions that are currently in place for Brooklyn, The Bronx and Manhattan, and that election might not be held until "well into the spring," Mr. Crowell told the hearing.

The coolly parsed arguments were occasionally interrupted by screwball logic, as when he expressed concern that the special election would have "low voter turnout — perhaps as low as 10 or 15 percent." And God only knows what havoc those hundreds of thousands of voters might wreak on the democratic process, as opposed to letting 51 Council Members express the will of the people.

Democracy Too Expensive?

Mr. Crowell also warned that the special election might "cost taxpayers upwards of $15 million, at a time when all city agencies are being asked to reduce spending." Anyone who thought that this was enough money to matter in a $60-billion budget was probably unaware that Mr. Bloomberg had dispensed $20 million in discretionary funds to Council Members during the past six years, with nearly 30 percent of that money sent to the Council district of one of his faithful supporters, Simcha Felder of Brooklyn, who as chair of the Government Operations Committee was presiding over the hearing.

Council Member de Blasio, citing the extensive media coverage of the issue and a crowd in the Council Chambers that was so large that hundreds were forced to wait outside the gates of City Hall, contended that a special election on a term limits amendment would generate such interest that there would be "a very large turnout."

When Council Member Letitia James asked whether City Comptroller Bill Thompson's financial expertise and Mr. Weiner's government experience did not make them also "uniquely qualified" to lead the city through troubled economic waters, Corporation Counsel Michael Cardozo replied that he was there to discuss the legislation, "not the personalities."

Caught in His Own Draft

It was the most-ironic remark of the afternoon session of the hearing — which didn't end until nearly midnight — because the momentum for the term limits change minus a voter referendum is a function of Mr. Bloomberg's personality. The publishers of the News, Post and Times didn't spontaneously come to the realization that the city couldn't go on without him: he had dinner with each of them during the summer to lay the groundwork for his anointment. Had he chosen to do so, Mr. Bloomberg could have had a Charter Commission up and running then, and if its deliberations wouldn't have been completed in time to put the matter on the November ballot, when turnout figures to be as high as it gets, it still could have convened a vote by February.

During a brief break in the hearings, Mr. Weiner scoffed at the concerns of city lawyers regarding turnout, wondering how "the vote of 51 New Yorkers doesn't violate the rights of New Yorkers but a referendum somehow does."

The Working Families Party has already been toiling furiously to drum up opposition to amending the law without a referendum, but the labor-backed organization has not had much support from actual unions. Mr. Bloomberg has actually had more success so far in corralling union leaders to support the term extension via a Council bill, from the building trades unions to four uniformed unions representing NYPD Detectives and Sergeants, fire officers and Sanitation Workers.

UFT Opposed, But Softly

The night before the hearings began, the United Federation of Teachers Delegate Assembly passed a resolution in favor of a change only through referendum. But UFT President Randi Weingarten, who's never been shy about putting the muscle of her organization and its 100,000-plus members behind a political cause, gave no indication in her remarks afterward that she was ready to go all-in on the campaign to take on Mr. Bloomberg.

Mr. Siegel noted that one of the attorneys who attended a strategy meeting he held the day before the first Council hearing "does work" for the UFT, and said, "I think it's a positive sign that the delegates voted." But when asked how engaged he expected the union to be, he replied, "I don't know the answer to that. I hope they get fully involved."

One reason for Ms. Weingarten to proceed cautiously is that her union's wage contract expires next October. The Mayor's bid for a third term presents both risks and opportunities for her: taking him on could mean difficult dealings with him on the contract if he won re-election, while quieter opposition could translate good will into the same kind of rewards Mr. Bloomberg has bestowed upon favored Council Members.

'Not One Dollar, One Vote'

Communications Workers of America Local 1180 President Arthur Cheliotes, who rarely lets practical considerations soften his rhetoric, argued that concerns about generosity vs. retribution should not obscure the issue at hand. "It's not one dollar, one vote," he said while waiting to testify. "It's one person, one vote."

The tension between honoring the democratic process and doing what has to be done to give Mr. Bloomberg a shot at a third term was best exemplified by the difference in positions taken by former Mayor Ed Koch and Fritz Schwarz, who served first as his Corporation Counsel and later as the Chairman of his Charter Revision Commission that, among other changes, placed on the 1989 ballot a referendum that abolished the Board of Estimate and thus greatly enhanced the powers of the City Council.

Mr. Schwarz said there was a strong practical argument for granting a third term to the Mayor and other city officials, independent of any crisis, and a legal one for having the Council do it. He also cited a concern about low turnout for special elections, and said that in a situation where the law was being "tinkered with" rather than abolished, using a Council amendment rather than a referendum was not a grievous affront to the will of the voters.

But he nonetheless leaned to having a referendum, in no small measure because of the price Mr. Bloomberg paid to secure support for the change from Ron Lauder, the billionaire who was the driving force behind the Term Limits Law: assurance that he would have a seat on a 2010 Charter Commission that would consider turning back to a two-term maximum.

'Worst of All Worlds'

"These events can be read to suggest the worst of all worlds," Mr. Schwarz remarked in his written testimony. "Ping-pong politics. Personalities over policy. Cynicism."

He contended that it was improper for the Mayor to state in advance of its appointment that the Charter panel would place a term limits turn-back on the ballot. He called for Mr. Bloomberg and Council Speaker Christine Quinn to pledge in advance of any Council vote that if term limits were extended for 2009, they would support keeping that extension in testimony before a Charter Commission the following year.

He also maintained that the Mayor's argument, carried forward at the hearing by dozens of supporters holding signs urging that voters be given a broader choice for offices than would be permitted under the current law, would ring hollow if he spent what some aides have said could be $100 million to retain office.

That kind of financial firepower, Mr. Schwarz said, made a mockery of Mr. Bloomberg's contention that if voters ultimately disagreed with the idea of giving him a shot at a third term without their consent, they could vote him out of office.

"Changing the rules in the middle of the game should not be compounded by then also tilting the electoral playing field to favor yourself," he stated. He contended that Mr. Bloomberg should commit to not spending more than the $6,158,000 limit that his opponents would have under the city's Campaign Finance Law.

Mr. Koch's position on the issue had none of the nuanced arguments presented by Mr. Schwarz: he contended that Mr. Bloomberg's performance in office more than warranted a third term, particularly in such challenging fiscal circumstances, and that because it was legal for the Council to amend the law, there was no reason to quibble over whether it was the fairest way to do it.

Koch's Grubbier Alliances

The contrast reflects their own experience in public life. Mr. Schwarz as the city's chief lawyer and Charter Commission head examined government from an ethical plane far above the political one on which Mr. Koch gained and kept office. He never had to curry favor with the morally dubious likes of Meade Esposito and Stanley Friedman simply to have a shot at getting his job, never had to hand out city jobs to them and their counterparts in other boroughs as part of the post-election price for that support, or to agonize about those unholy alliances when their misdeeds came to light during Mr. Koch's own third term.

There was a certain poignancy to the fact that the debate was being held in the same room where the bosses who helped Mr. Koch rise to power had their final moment in the sun nearly 23 years ago, when a last-minute vote switch captured the Council speakership for the candidate championed by Mr. Friedman and Queens Borough President Donald Manes, Peter Vallone Sr. A few days after that 18-17 vote, Mr. Manes made his first try at suicide, and details began coming to light of massive corruption in city government that would send Mr. Friedman to jail and doom Mr. Koch's chances of a fourth term as Mayor.

Mr. Schwarz never had to enter that sausage factory to smell the grease or watch the meat being chopped up and molded. Mr. Koch got the full tour. That may explain why he is less squeamish about Mr. Bloomberg's power play: it goes against the grain of the civics lessons that are no longer part of the school curriculum, but still seems a couple of notches above the way the old county leaders did business.

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