New York's Enabling Act?

While under normal circumstances, we would have no problem with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg running for another term in office, we have to object in this case.

The Mayor and his enablers in the City Council seem determined to overrule, by fiat, the will of the people as expressed in two referendums.

The people of New York, acting in the best interests of the democratic process, decided to term-limit their politicians.

They did not do so just once in a freak poll, they voted for term-limits once and then reiterated their vote in a second.

For New York's politicians to ignore this fact is arrogance of the purest form. Mayor Bloomberg says now that it would be too difficult to hold a Special Election during the first half of next year and that it's too late to add a vote to the ballots in time for the November elections in three-and-a-half weeks.

Well, whose fault is that? For the last year, teased by the New York press, the Mayor has rejected the idea that he would seek reelection when his second term ends next November.

Now, he's changed his mind. And why? Because a billionaire who formerly supported term-limits has come out in favour of a one-off change to allow another billionaire to seek reelection?

Something smells bad in New York, and this time it's not the sewers.

So, having decided that he should be able to run for a third time, how does he get around the law? He goes to the City Council, itself full of term-limited politicians. The political classes wonder why normal people are so turned off by them.

They don't seem to realise that we see through them and their half-hearted support of the democratic process.

It seems that the Bloomberg of yesteryear - a citizen-politician who fought both for the people and what he believed in - has become just another tired and cynical political hack.