Rock Paper Billionaire

Notwithstanding overwhelming public opposition, my fair city of New York’s City Council voted 29-22 in favor of amending a voter-referendum imposed law mandating term limits of two terms at the behest of the $20 billion man, Mayor Mike Bloomberg, who, at around 65 years old, decided that he couldn’t do anything better with his time than, well… have a third term as mayor.
And so there you have it. The same voting public that overwhelmingly opposes the change in the term limits law will almost certainly vote Mayor Bloomberg into a third term, particularly as much of the likely competition for that office will stay away in droves rather than face a popular incumbent with virtually unlimited campaign spending ability.
Like Rudy Giuliani before him who went along with the term limits law, Mayor Mike had previously opposed changing the law… but now that the reality of the law affecting him came into play, well… he got religion.
Don’t get me wrong: on net, Bloomberg has been an effective mayor here, and in some ways, the perfect is the enemy of the good. Somehow, it feels wrong that the will of the voters in a direct referendum can be trashed so easily. But then, the Council members anticipated that the voters would probably “punish” many of them by electing them to third terms (also part of the amendment!)
Good old democracy in action.

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