Bloomberg's Term Has Reached its Limit

New York City residents may be experiencing a little déjà vu. Mayor Bloomberg, the Democrat-turned-Republican-turned-Independent, wants to run for mayor again. For those who are unaware, he is already at the end of his second term. Maybe he is hoping third time's a charm.

The problem is, New York City has term limitations, which means the mayor is only allowed hold to hold his office for two terms. This is not some old stodgy law; it is only 15 years old and was passed in response to widespread corruption in the municipal government that people wanted to prevent in the future. To be fair, a lot has happened to New York City since 1993, the most traumatizing being 9/11 and the most recent the financial crisis. The option to overturn this law, however, has already been brought to vote twice and has failed when previous mayor-turned-failed-U.S. presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani tried to pull the same stunt.

With the elections being so close, the only option, if Bloomberg expects to run and be re-elected, is to have it passed as a legislative measure by the City Council. It has been estimated that if Mayor Bloomberg is able to convince the council to overturn the limit, which means they would also get to keep their own jobs for another four years, he will spend approximately $100 million dollars on the campaign.

Bloomberg cites the current financial crisis on Wall Street as the reason why he would needs to serve again. However, when the city was crippled in post-9/11 2001, Manhattan was practically closed to any economic activity, being concentrated, and rightfully so, on the rescue of victims and clean-up. It was the worst year for U.S. markets and Wall Street in recent history, until now. Giuliani, whose management and hands-on approach to getting the city running again, was denied a three-month term extension. Now, with only half of the problem faced during the end of Giuliani's term, Bloomberg thinks that he is deserving of a whole new term? It just does not add up.

This is not about his mayoral ability, although he initially struggled, he has received and maintained a high approval rating, implemented initiatives to reduce New York City's carbon footprint, increased gun control, and supports gay marriage. He seems like a nice guy, and has proven a good mayor, but his turn is over. The bottom line is laws are laws, and even though I would be curious to see what he would do with a third term. The fact that he has little regard for the regulations in place and trying to undermine the will of citizens by going through legislation, makes me feel that New York City would not benefit from a third term anyway.