Since term limits were enacted in California 22 years ago there has been three efforts by politicians to loosen the term limit requirement.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg ran for Mayor of New York City knowing that he was limited to two terms, but that did not stop him from changing the law so that he could run for a third term. Having achieved a third term Bloomberg supported changing the law back to a two term limit.

In 2006 the Town of Amherst, NY (population 122,000) adopted a two term limit (8 years) for elected officials. The term limit went into effect in 2007, of course Board members at the time grandfathered in their previous years of service. No elected official in Amherst has reached the two term limit yet, but as that day approaches some Amherst Board members want to revisit the idea of term limits.

Board member Mark Manna ran in 2006 knowing that if successful he would be limited to two 4 year terms. Five months into what should be his last term Manna and Board member Steven Sanders who is 17 months into his first term have filed a Resolution seeking to study the idea of term limits.

A copy of the resolution introduced is below. Whether Judges should be subject to term limits is a fair question.

I highly doubt that the end result of this Resolution will be to shorten term limits to one term. It is amazing how once people obtain elected office they do not want to leave. I applaud people who are willing to run for office and put the time in to serve but elected office should not be a career and 8 years is a sufficient amount of time to accomplish some things. I support term limits as it allows for new faces to serve in public office and it is shocking how a little bit of power goes to people’s heads in a very negative way over time.

www.reinventinggov.org