Matt Yglesias

Stadium Deals

Here’s a little local news while I’m still in NYC from the always-appalling universe of stadium dealmaking:

The Bloomberg administration was so intent on obtaining a free luxury suite for its own use at the new Yankee Stadium, newly released e-mail messages show, that the mayor’s aides pushed for a larger suite and free food, and eventually gave the Yankees 250 additional parking spaces in exchange.

The parking spaces were given to the team for the private use of Yankees officials, players and others; the spaces were originally planned for public parking. The city also turned over the rights to three new billboards along the Major Deegan Expressway, and whatever revenue they generate, as part of the deal.

Bad stadium policy meets bad parking policy and a good time is had by all.

Bloomberg’s Popularity

It looks like Michael Bloomberg stands a good chance of getting his third term:

A majority of New York City voters (54 percent to 42 percent) now favor extending term limits to 12 years from 8 so they can elect Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg to a third term, even though nearly two thirds (65 percent to 29 percent) favor the basic concept of term limits, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released on Friday morning. [...] Even when the term limits question was phrased a different way, emphasizing procedural fairness, 52 percent said Mr. Bloomberg deserved four more years to finish his work as mayor, while 44 percent said changing the rules in the middle of the game was unfair. [...] The poll found a remarkably high approval rating, 75 percent to 19 percent, for Mr. Bloomberg’s job performance. Approval was highest among white voters (83 percent to 13 percent) but also solid among black voters (69 percent to 23 percent) and Hispanic voters (68 percent to 25 percent).

On the other hand, I hadn’t previously realized that one of the contenders to replace Bloomberg is named “Marty Markowitz” which I think is a great New York name. In all seriousness, I don’t want to come off as unduly in the tank for Bloomberg here. Obviously, I haven’t lived in New York City for some time and have only a limited familiarity with the issues and little-to-any familiarity with his opponents. Very possibly, someone else would be a better mayor. But I think that person should make the argument on the merits. And, yes, “Bloomberg is an unprincipled, power-hungry jerk who opportunistically changed the term limits law when he decided he wanted to stay on” counts as a potentially effective argument against re-electing him. Nevertheless, there’s still no good reason to artificially limit the number of terms to which a mayor can be elected.

More of the Same

I don’t totally grasp the argument, made by Dana Goldstein and others, that it would be horribly “undemocratic” for the New York City Council to repeal the city’s term limits that were imposed years back by referendum. I mean, suppose they did it, what could happen next? Well, either Bloomberg would lose to whoever wins the Democratic nomination or else Bloomberg would defeat whoever wins the Democratic nomination. In the first case, the will of the people to deny Bloomberg a third term would not be subverted — Bloomberg wouldn’t get a third term. And in the second case, the will of the people to deny Bloomberg a third term would not be subverted either — Bloomberg would have a renewed direct mandate from the public.

Now that doesn’t change the fact that the timing and manner of Bloomberg’s decision to seek this change seems kind of sleazy. But the time to take that into consideration is during his re-election campaign when you might think it renders him an inferior choice to the main alternative. But the idea of scrapping term limits can and should still be evaluated on its own merits and it’s a good idea.

Third Term for Bloomberg

Looks like Michael Bloomberg is going to try to get the rule changed to allow him to run for a third term as mayor of New York City. I think Bloomberg’s been a good mayor, but I’m not very familiar with the alternatives so I wouldn’t want to express a view on the underlying merits of re-electing him even if that were the sort of thing that’s allowed on this blog.

But in a broader sense, term limits have never struck me as a policy with an especially strong theoretical or empirical justification. Term limits are more interesting insofar as there’s no duller story in politics than “popular incumbent cruises to re-election” but why shouldn’t popular incumbents cruise to re-election? Term limits for the state legislature haven’t improved governance in California, and I think the country would have been better served in both 2008 and 2000 by a more clear-cut choice about whether or not to continue on the current direction.

UPDATE: As Atrios points out the right way to do this would be to eliminate term limits for your successors rather than for yourself. At a minimum, I’d say it would be strongly preferable to be on record as against term limits before you ever took office.