Happy Term Limits Hearing Day! Gov Ops Committee Approves

This afternoon is the City Council’s term limits vote — or, as Gowanus Lounge puts it, “one of most grotesque subversions of democracy that any of us will ever witness short of a coup d’etat in Washington.”

Ominously for opponents, the Council’s Government Operations Committee just approved the bill 6-0. (Simcha Felder and Inez Dickens, previously undecided, voted in favor.)

New York‘s Daily Intel says getting the required 26 votes will be “a tight squeeze,” and the Mayor is “squeezing a bunch of council members and supporters.”

As the likelihood of the bill’s passage grows, some politicians maneuver to evade its possible fallout. Yesterday Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion, previously a supporter of the Mayor’s plan, announced that he could “no longer support” it. “It is irresponsible for government to enter into a deal with a private citizen that would undo the term limit legislation resulting in a two-tier class system of council members,” he said.

Councilmember Jessica Lappin, whose ambivalence we earlier noted, now says she’ll vote against the bill.

The Neighborhood Retail Alliance isn’t having it: “Who was the guy who raised our taxes in the post 9/11 meltdown-only to be bailed out by the supposed infamous George Bush and his federal cuts? And who is the one is already getting us ready for another round of taxes at a time when city residents are the most taxed people in the country?… Mr. Indispensable.” Atlantic Yards Report is sore about it too.

Brooklyn Heights Blog says some councilmembers will try to get a referendum amendment passed, but we doubt much will come of that.