New York Law Blog

We’ve been talking about this frequently in the last few weeks, but according to today’s New York Times, New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg is planning to announce on Thursday that he will seek a third term, which is still currently against the law. Mr. Bloomberg believes that with the financial crisis facing our nation, his experience with Wall Street will go a long way to helping the city survive in this particularly difficult time. Some fear that changing of the law would not go over well with voters, who voted against the amendment in both 1993 and 1996, but many think the city council is ready to vote yes on the term limit law change.

The move represents an about-face for Mr. Bloomberg, who has repeatedly said he supports term limits and once called an effort to revise the law “disgusting.” He will apparently try to do so through legislation in the City Council, rather than the ballot box.

With his decision, Mr. Bloomberg is overruling the advice of this top three aides at City Hall — Edward Skyler, Patricia E. Harris and Kevin Sheekey — who have all told associates that they oppose a third term.

Those aides have told the mayor — at times forcefully — that any campaign to challenge the term limits law would look like an end run around voters, and could sully his strong legacy over the last eight years, according to people familiar with the conversations.

According to the Times, if Mayor Bloomberg did indeed win a third term, he’d be only the fourth New York City mayor to do so.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 30th, 2008 at 9:39 pm and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.