Maybe now you can in Chapel Hill.
By way of Kirk Ross of Exile on Jones Street and The Independent Weekly:
A few minutes ago the NC House passed H2324 which eliminates a term limit section on the office of Mayor of Chapel Hill from the town charter.
Anybody know anything about this?
Well I looked up H2324, and it says:
Short Title: Chapel Hill Charter Amendment.
Sponsors: Representatives Insko and Hackney (Primary Sponsors).A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
AN ACT TO AMEND THE CHARTER OF THE TOWN OF CHAPEL HILL TO REPEAL TERM LIMITS FOR THE OFFICE OF MAYOR.
The General Assembly of North Carolina enacts:
SECTION 1. Section 2.1 of the Charter of the Town of Chapel Hill, being Chapter 473 of the 1975 Session Laws, as rewritten by Section 6 of Chapter 911 of the 1981 Session laws, reads as rewritten:
"(c) The mayor shall be elected at biennial elections for a term of two years subject to the provisions of Section 2.3 of this Charter.
No person shall be eligible to be elected to mayor for more than four successive two‑year terms."SECTION 2. This act is effective when it becomes law.
What?! Why? And what about the Town Council?
Issues:
Comments
I think someone has some
I think someone has some serious 'splaning to do.
The question is, who? Is it
The question is, who? Is it our State Reps who co-sponsored this, or the Chapel Town Council, or Kevin Foy, or what? Usually this kind of thing is done at the request of a local government body, but I don't recall Chapel Hill asking for a king for life.
And then of course there's still why...
I think the section that is
I think the section that is being repealed may have been unconstitutional. The State Constitution lays out the qualifications for running for office and no mere state statute (or town charter) may alter what the North Carolina Constitution says - or so said the NC Supreme Court in declaring the NC 'resign to run' statute to be unconstitutional back in 1990 or so.
What does the NC State
What does the NC State Constitution say about term limits?
It appears that the issue
It appears that the issue was placed on the calendar 06/15/2006.
Here's the the link to H2324's history.
I think it must be Art
I think it must be Art Pope's doing . . .
:)
Here's some discussion from
Here's some discussion from a News and Record 'blog post spurred by a Guilford BOC request last Oct. 2005 to look into BOC term limits.
In 2006, the oh so juicy
In 2006, the oh so juicy juice NC League of Municipalities is against municipal term limits. (I'm not a big fan of a number of NCLM budgetary suggestions).
From May 8th's Council
From May 8th's Council agenda,
Further elaboration.
The charter section is
The charter section is clearly unconstitutional. See above.
I'm curious what got
I'm curious what got Karpinos, at this juncture, to suggest the change?
"The Attorney believes this term limitation is in conflict with the Constitution of North Carolina and recommends that we request its repeal."
With a cursorary search of the online minutes, I haven't found a request by Council or a citizen to review the term limit requirement.
It's been a busy month for me, so this slipped under the radar.
Anyone have an idea when the term limits were added to the charter? What about the historical context?
The NC Constitution could be
The NC Constitution could be changed, even if the NCLM is against it ;-)
During the recent BOC election, folks talked about insinuated ("framed") term limits. Would Chapel Hill or Orange County voters support a modification to the Constitution?
The question is "should we
The question is "should we have term limits for our mayor?" In my oppinion, the answer is "no." If Mayor Foy is doing a good job, I as a voter should have the right to elect him. Don't take my right to elect the best person the position. When I go to vote in November, I want the right to chosoe the person who is best suited to perform the duties of the office.
Of course, now someone is going to ask, "What about the President." Yes, I support term limits for the President. Because of the aura of the office (an aura that does not exist for Mayor or any other office) it is important to maintain change in the office. People go to see "The President" for no other reason than to catch a glimpse of him.
So I guess the part I'm
So I guess the part I'm missing is: are there already term limits clearly and legally spelled out in the Town's own laws? Was the state law redundant or do we now have no mayoral term limit?
Someone please have pity and spell it our for those of us with short attentions spans...
Hopefully Gerry or the many
Hopefully Gerry or the many legal lurkers will weigh in...
My reading is that, as stated, "This language [on term limits] was added to the Town's Charter in 1981 by Section 6 of Chapter 911 of the 1981 Session Laws."
Then, the closest case so far, "Moore v. Knightdale Board of Elections, 331 N.C. 1, 12 (1992)" - settled the issue of "resign to run". Essentially ruling that this particular requirement "imposes an additional qualification" which, under the NC Constitution, is not allowed.
That 1992 case, as extrapolated by Ralph et. al., would seem to apply in the case of term limits.
I've done a little more research and have not found a specific challenge to the Sect. 6, Chap. 911 rules on term limits (maybe some Findlaw folks can help out).
A few things strike me:
One, the Moore case was settled in '92 and in '95 the legislature specifically repealed the rule.
Two, the legislature did not repeal term limits.
Three, mayoral term limits, from what I can tell, haven't been specifically challenged.
Four, Ralph concludes it's un-Constitutional (which it probably is) in the absence of a specific judicial ruling (which is probably reasonable ):
It's his opinion that it is inconsistent.
Five, does this signal Foy's early desire to run again? Why wait until we have a mayor on the cusp of violating the rule? The Council is packed with legal talent and if this provision is un-Constitutional, why not act 10 years ago?
Kevin is really thinking
Kevin is really thinking ahead if he tried to push this through since he would have been eligible to serve through 2009 under the soon to be invalidated term limit rule. I sincerely doubt that's the case and imagine he will have moved on to bigger and better things by then.
I only know what's happened over the last twenty years off the top of my head but our mayors have in that period chosen to retire after two or three terms. This seems like a reasonable precedent to me.
I'm surprised this was a hot
I'm surprised this was a hot topic to get people wanting some 'splaning. Aside from the eventual conclusion that it was harmless housekeeping, it had little practical potential.
Even given a choice on the matter, going without term limits is hardly asking for a king for life. While the last Battle of the Kevins for mayor was fun, it also highlighted that we still have elections. And although it's fun to imagine Kevin Foy with Boss Hogg ambitions, I agree that he may ultimately find greener pastures.
It doesn't matter that most
It doesn't matter that most mayors around here retire after 3 terms, I still think we should have term limits. And I still haven't seen an answer about whether we do or do not have them now!
For me this highlights the
For me this highlights the parental relationship of the state to local governments. I don't see any reason why democracy shouldn't be legalized all the way to the local level. Local governments should be able to decide how to elect their reps.
This is most problematic for us in Orange County with the commissioner election process. Cumulative voting or instant run-off voting (IRV) would be elegant and fair solutions to our dilemma yet they are always deemed "forbidden" by state law and all the good lawyers and leaders nod and move on to suggest some half-ass election reform plan.
And we know that IRV solves the problem that Carrboro experienced in the last election with filling Chilton's seat.
How long before the local governments band together and challenge the overloaded power of state government on these matters and others? The lack of "home rule" status for local governments may be the single biggest obstracle to progressive policy in the state.
Ruby, The only term limit
Ruby,
The only term limit for elected officials here, or anywhere.
The change was, as Tom describes it, a housekeeping matter. Now we don't have a provision in the Charter that is in conflict with the State Constitution.
I remember reviewing the Charter after I was elected and noticed the term limit provision. I didn't say anything about . . . just thought it was interesting. Ralph noticed it, brought it to our attention this spring and suggested we eliminate this unconstitutional provision.
That's all the 'splaning there is to do.
The Mayor of Chapel Hill is
The Mayor of Chapel Hill is limited to one term, until voters re-elect to a second or third or fourth or whatever.
If voters want to keep sending him, or any other elected official, back again and again, I would think they are happy with him/her.
Why shouldn't any registered voter, including the incumbent, be able to run for any seat? Isn't that the most democratic thing to do?
By the way, I do think IRV or proportional representation or other voting innovations should be explored. These types of changes would do more to promote democracy than term limits.
I think IRV stands for
I think IRV stands for Instant Runoff Voting
Instant-runoff voting (IRV) (also known as the Alternative Vote and by several other names) is an electoral system used for single winner elections in which voters rank candidates in order of preference. In an IRV election, if no candidate receives an overall majority of first preferences the candidates with fewest votes are eliminated one by one, and their votes transferred according to their second and third preferences (and so on), until one candidate achieves a majority. The term 'instant-runoff voting' is used because this process resembles a series of run-off elections. At a national level IRV is used to elect the Australian House of Representatives[1], the President of Ireland and the Fijian House of Representatives.
"The only term limit for
"The only term limit for elected officials here, or anywhere."
Was an incomplete sentence. Was supposed to read: The only term limit for elected officials here, or anywhere in NC, is the one imposed on them by the electorate.
Term limits, to me,
Term limits, to me, represent the least progressive mode of safe-democracy. It's a stop-gap protection against harm done by tyrannical encumbents. It mitigates potential damage by limiting the possible amount of harm done to certain amount of time---but in doing so also limits the potential good done.
If we were serious about a progressive agenda, I'd think we'd want to abolish term limits. First, I don't think the talent pool is all that deep. Nothing personal to individuals or locales, simply the way it is with local government. You just don't find expert politicians suddenly springing up to fill mayorial voids in small towns. Second, I think the true progressive solution would be to influence those (and increase the number) who vote rather than those who can run for office.
Term limits represent a political facade to me. I see no reason to expect perpetual improvement in leadership by switching out leaders. On the otherhand, I can think of no better assurance of improving leadership than with an electorate that actually votes. I'd much rather have accountability through 90%+ voter turnout.
Thanks for the 'splanation.
Thanks for the 'splanation. Interesting stuff. Ever since that little measure to strip the town of jurisdiction over Horace Williams and the main campus almost made it into the state budget, I've tried to keep an eye on bills with the words Chapel Hill in them.
kmr
www.exileonjonesstreet.com
My gut reaction to municipal
My gut reaction to municipal term limits, like Jim, is to abolish them and let the electorate inforce its own timeline.
Having run for office, though, and experienced the "power of incumbency", I can understand why it might've been considered necessary.
Of course, citizen-owned elections and heightened scrutiny of incumbents actions/remarks could be much more effective in ameliorating the imbalance than term limits. But that also depends on an electorate predisposed to researching the field and turning out to vote - something that is slipping away from us.
Mayor Foy has built quite a warchest over the years, collecting quite a bit after the elections, even though he's at the point of requiring little upfront money to run anymore. Does he owe his fund-raising strength more to being a likeable dude or to his real and potential mayoral longevity or to his probable success climbing to higher office? If he continues to amass funds, does that end up precluding successful opposition (another Kevin)?
Countering that example, Bunky had a much greater warchest - no term limitation - but was soundly (but difficultly) defeated.
actually, the term limit
actually, the term limit provision was enacted in 1975, when the Charter was totally rewritten and the Mayor's term changed from two years to four years:
http://www.ncleg.net/enactedlegislation/sessionlaws/html/1975-1976/sl197...
"(c) The mayor shall be elected at alternate biennial elections for a term of four years subject to the provisions of Section 2.4 of this Charter. No person shall be eligible to be elected to mayor for more than two successive four-year terms."
The four-year term experiment lasted until 1981, I believe, when the Town switched back to two year terms.
If Bill Thorpe were reading
If Bill Thorpe were reading this (maybe he is), he would be want to jump in on this conversation. If I'm not mistaken, he was on the council and "made the motion" (I'm quoting him here and haven't seen the minutes) to have the mayor run every 2 years, along with four of the council, so the mayor "wouldn't have any influence on the council elections" if he were sitting for a four year term. I think he is saying he sees the benefit of having the mayor run with every council that he serves with. I'm sure Bill would love to offer up his historical insight here.
Laurin, I recall during the
Laurin, I recall during the election Bill's comments on forming the town's charter.
Unfortunately, I haven't found a lot of "on-line" references to the context, discussions, etc. back then...
The online minutes go back to 1986, though, the earlier ones, unfortunately, are scanned PDFs (one day I plan to OCR them to put them out in a searchable form).
I found a small reference to Howard Lee's legislative proposal to limit terms in 1991.
Cross posted from Kirk
Cross posted from Kirk Ross's post about this issue.
One of the virtues of a 2
One of the virtues of a 2 year term for Mayor is that it gives the voters the chance to elect an entirely new majority at every election. Of course it doesn't happen much, but every now and then that type of change is needed. Witness the recent situation with the Chatham County Commission. Chatham voters had to wait four long years to vote out Bunkey's majority.
The 1975 charter rewrite
The 1975 charter rewrite came out of a recommendation by the Chapel Hill Charter Commission which met throughout 1974. I'm pretty sure I voted against both the term limits and increasing the mayor's terms when the charter came up for action by the board of aldermen before going on to the General Assembly for approval.
Someone wrote a Masters Thesis on it at the Journalism School at Carolina:
Title: The Chapel Hill charter commission
Author: Cuthbertson, James Oscar, Jr.
Advisor: Adams, John B.
Call Number: STP-MAS .CUTHBERTSON 1974
someone who is totally obsessed by this thread can go to the Park Library over at the Journalism School, read up on it, and post! (or depnding on which library website you believe, it may be in the Thesis Collection at Davis, or in the North Carolina Collection ofer at the RB House Library
Davis Library Thesis
Call number Thesis Journ. 1974 C988
Call number Archival copy in North Carolina Collection
the term limit repeal bill
the term limit repeal bill became law today
http://www.ncleg.net/Sessions/2005/Bills/House/HTML/H2324v3.html
Hey, neat, the Chapel Hill
Hey, neat, the Chapel Hill News just wrote an article about this legislation. Now, where did they get such a clever headline: "Mayor for Life?"
Can we now put to rest the questions of whether reporters read blogs and whether we do at least some of their job for them?
Thing is, reporters and
Thing is, reporters and columnists have almost no say-so about headlines. That's why they're so often misleading. Matt must have insisted on Mayor for Life, having hung his whole piece on that hook.
In my experience, reporters
In my experience, reporters tend to leave work before newspaper pages are constructed on a computer -- that happens fairly late at night, and so it's almost impossible for reporters to insist on a headline because they have no idea what size it will be or how many columns it'll take up. Still, who knows what the particular situation was in this case.
Either way, to pretend that reporters (especially local ones) don't get some of their news from blogs is just silly. You see it in the DTH, you see it in the Herald, you see it in the N&O/CHN, and you see it in the national press all the time.
How anyone can consider that a bad thing is beyond me. No matter how long you've covered Orange County, no matter how many sources you've built up, there's absolutely no way you can know more than the dozens of folks who read and post to this site.
A healthy skepticism of blogs is natural, but that's only because reporters ought to be initially skeptical of _everything_ they hear (even though they're not). Sites like OP seem to me to be the free flow of ideas at its finest -- a lesson that I think Ruby will be glad to know I'll take with me when I graduate in three weeks and end my DTH career.
[So, no, I didn't pen that WCHL story. In case you were wondering. ;-)]
I totally agree, Chris. As
I totally agree, Chris. As a blogger, I get lots of information from the papers, so I don't see any problem with them doing the same.
However, I do make an effort to try to think of new titles for my posts instead of using their headlines, and I always put other people's work in quotations.
After being out of the
After being out of the country since early June, it was interesting to return home and read this thread last night from beginning to end. I was somewhat surprised since the issue of asking our State delegation to help bring our ordinance in line with the NC Constitution was on the Town Council agenda back in early May. The way it was initially presented here, you would have thought some politician was trying to pull a fast one.
As for reporters reading/using blogs, I think it is clear that this is happening nationwide, if not internationally. Before blogs, reporters got tips by mail, phone or in person, and some, even went out and dug up stories by practicing old fashion journalism. With blogs, reporters have instant multiple sources who might raise aspects of the issues they haven't considered and facts that they didn't have. The cumulative effect of different writers commenting can also help them when they write their story. Of course, bloggers get a lot of their material from papers, magazines and TV.
I think, as with other media, people should have a healthy skepticism about what they read on a blog, especially from those anons that seem to populate so many blogs. And even people who have good track records for accuracy can get it wrong on occasion.
Ruby- Don't get me wrong, I
Ruby-
Don't get me wrong, I agree with you. If the CHN did indeed use your post title in a headline, it shouldn't have.
I think it's great if CHN
I think it's great if CHN picked up Ruby's headline. It was amusing, even if slightly misleading.
Credit was due for the story, though.
It should be pointed out
It should be pointed out that throughout the 1990s, after his arrest for cocaine possession, the Washington City Paper changed its stylebook and began referring to Marion Barry, almost exclusively, by the invented title of "Mayor for Life." Just a little joke.
"Mayor for Life" has also been used to describe mayors in Toronto, Harrisburg (PA), New York (to describe more than one mayor), Akron, Louisville (KY), McDonaldland (Mayor McCheese), Seattle (ironically), Albany (NY), Chicago (of course), Mississauga (Ont. -- Canadians hate change, of course), Newark (recently disproven), Louise (MS), Charleston, Greensboro, Fayetteville (NC), North Adams (MA), New Orleans, Miami, and too many more to list.
The term "mayor for life" gets typically used in one of two situations: when someone has won more than two mayoral elections and doesn't seem ready to quit (Daley in Chicago, Martinez in Miami), and when a mayor wins election despite what many in the punditocracy consider insurmountable odds or just plain criminality (Barry in DC, Nagin in NOLA). A less common occasion seems to be particularly appropriate in our situation: when term limits are a question.
But you see a real uptick in the usage of the term, according to Nexis, after the City Paper began using the term to describe Barry's re-election in DC.
My point is that "mayor for life" is now such a common phrase, it's perfectly possible that the CHN copyeditor thought of it without having seen op.org, having heard the phrase repeatedly over the years in other contexts. Or, perhaps, that person stole it. Who knows?
Searching competitors' stories for instances of your reporting going unattributed is, sadly, an obsession many journalists share. It never gets easier, you have to learn to be zen about it. It's a compliment.