Last night the Charter Revision Commission invited the heads of the past charter commissions to share their wisdom and expertise. It all began as one would expect with everyone expressing admiration of and gratitude to their predecessors and/or successors. But then things turned unexpectedly feisty as the former chairs clashed over issues the current commission will undoubtedly consider: nonpartisan elections and term limits.
The term limits debate pitted Lt Gov. Richard Ravitch, chair of the first commission, against Frank Macchiarola. In 2003, Macchiarola decided to put nonpartisan elections, a pet cause of the man who appointed him, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, on the ballot before the commission held hearings. The measure went down to defeat by a margin of more than two to one, despite the mayor’s deep pockets. But yesterday Macchiarola made it clear he had no regrets.
Describing himself as a member of the “Green Tea Party because I’m an environmentalist,” Macchiarola expressed his disdain for many aspects of our the city’s current election system, including public financing of campaigns, which he said “has built an industry of people who help people get elected who would get elected without it. “He also derided elite newspapers and the Working Families Party, which he called the Workers Party and tarred as Bolshevik (when did you last hear that one?).
People , he said, are seething with anger over being kept out of the political process and dictated to by elites A system of nonpartisan elections, Macchiarola said, would ease that, “increase turnout and give more people the right to run.”
Ravitch conceded that “no one who is going through what I’m going through now in Albany can’t have difficulty maintaining one’s faith in the democratic process.” But, he continued, one doesn’t solve problems “in politics by taking politics out of the political process. Politics is not a pejorative word.”
The two party system, he said, serves as “a stabilizing force in American politics” and allows people to run for office “who dont necessarily have the wherewithal to get on the ballot themselves.” (And who might ne mean here?)
The term limits exhcnage after the jump.
Read the rest of this entry »
By Gail Robinson on May 18, 2010, 3:00 pm
In category:
City Hall,
Electoral Politics,
Gotham City,
Governing | 2 Comments »
RSS Feed