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Opinion
State Government Needs Term Limits

We need term limits in state government.

If the people of this state had the choice of limiting the number of years that a legislator was eligible to serve, they would do it in a New York second.

When New York City voters had that choice they passed both term limits and public campaign financing.

We all know that the level of corruption in the Legislature, both legal and illegal, is a product of arrogance. Some of these office holders literally think they can do whatever they want and get away with it. You've got to figure that for every time one of these miscreants is busted, they have gotten away with the same thing or worse in the past.

Even if the legislator doesn't actually break the law, we know that one way or another, favors are exchanged for campaign cash. We often call this "providing access." You get access if you give cash to campaigns or to businesses. No money, no access.

Come on, let's see this for what it is.

Needless to say, some of these bottom feeders quake in their boots when they hear the words term limits. They argue that we Americans have the right to elect whomever we want to elect.

That is a powerful argument. Unfortunately, the system is so tainted by money that it would be naive to believe that people really get a choice. That's why people want term limits, even though it is axiomatic that everyone loves their own legislator and hates the rest of the pool.

The whole rotten system is populated by players who depend on one another to stay in office.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo promised to clean up Albany, but in order to get his agenda passed, he has to play ball with the Legislature. It turns out that we have to rely on federal prosecutors to do the heavy lifting.

Now the pot is really boiling. There is so much corruption in the system that, really, the only way to put a stop to the shenanigans is to limit the amount of time a legislator can continue to serve.

We do it with the president of the United States. He or she is term-limited. If a president survives a second election, it's four more years and out.

Naturally, there are a few politicians who try to game the system. Two state legislators recently called for term limits, but only if their terms were increased from two to four years.

People like professors have tenure and can stay in the saddle for years, but they do not have the power that governors and legislators do. Every time the professional politicians are confronted with the people's cry for term limits, they offer up a combination of spurious and, on occasion, good theory. We know why they are doing it: They want to keep their jobs forever. Only in the rarest of moments, when their own jobs are at stake, do we see them take action to correct things. They set up very weak ethics bodies and don't really let them do their jobs.

They finally got around to dealing with the notorious Asssemblyman Vito Lopez, D-Brooklyn, who, when he was in power, could make or break someone who wanted to be a judge. Once he was stripped of his power, these brave men and women could go after the guy with everything they had.

Do you really think that Lopez is the worst of the crowd? All the investigations say he didn't even break the law. Compare him with the people who are being carted off to jail in the state Senate.

Lord Acton said it: "Power corrupts." He was?right and the people want it stopped. They have no real faith that we can achieve that goal but given the choice, you had better bet that they would choose term limits.

The more the political chicanery is exposed, the more appealing term limits are.



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