A Chat With The Term Limit Attorney Of Record

By MICHAEL SCHENKLER

Over the past three years, this column has probably spent a disproportionate amount of time on the subject of City Council term limits.

We never advocated in favor of them – although as time goes by, the concept becomes more and more appealing. We merely stood up – often in the face of unbelievable odds – and shouted at the top of our lungs, if the people passed term limits by referendum, they can only be changed by referendum.

In 1993 – funded and championed by Ron Lauder – the people of this City overwhelmingly approved, by referendum, term limits for the Mayor, Comptroller, Public Advocate, Beeps and City Council. An attempt by the Council to lengthen their terms was defeated in a 1996 referendum.

The people had spoken –  twice.

Then in 2001 as the Council faced the reality of term limits — 38 members were to be forced out of office — they attempted, without going back to the people, to repeal the term limit law. We cried foul. We led the charge. We called them every name in the book. We even put the faces of the seven Queens members pushing the cause on a “Wanted For Crimes Against the People” poster on the front page of our paper. We felt strongly — very strongly — if the people passed the law to limit Council terms, the Council could not change it without going back to the people.

After months of Council maneuvering, Mayoral candidate and then-Speaker Peter Vallone pulled the plug on the action and term limits stood.

They came, they went and as we’ve said before, the doomsday scenarios didn’t occur. The sky didn’t fall. A bright new Council was elected — better than the previous one — and the City was in good hands.

The new Council members elected one of the eight non-term- limited holdovers – Giff Miller – to be its new Speaker. Miller was up to the task in every way. He has proven to be a bright, amiable, hardworking shrewd politician who has led the Council through these very difficult times.

He also led the Council to slightly change or “tweak” the term limit law so that he and five of his remaining senior colleagues could avoid term limits for two additional years. He did it skillfully, manipulating just about every player and editorial page throughout the City. And even though we consider Giff a friend and one who has served the City well, the facts of term limits haven’t changed. The people passed them and to change them, the Council must go back to the people.

We stood almost alone in the City, shouting our view that the Miller term-limit tweak was wrong.

One who agreed with us – then Councilman, now State Senator, Brooklyn’s Marty Golden – along with two others, brought suit challenging the tweak by Miller and the Council.  They secured the services of attorneys Randy Mastro –  Deputy Mayor under Rudy Giuliani – and Ravi Batra, law partner of Clarence Norman the Brooklyn Democratic County Leader.

This paper in its coverage of the term limit issue interviewed Mastro a number of times. Batra had never hooked up with our reporters.

We had expressed our viewpoint that the Council could not or should not change the law passed by the people on a moral and ethical level. Mastro and Batra were taking it through the courts on a legal level.

Last month they won in Brooklyn Supreme when judge Gerard Rosenberg threw out the Council’s term limit tweak.

Up to this point, you’ve read it here before — and I’ve told the story in writing and at speaking engagements in various ways and  in columns many times before.

Then late last week, I ran into Ravi Batra, one of the two attorneys fighting the fight. With all my research into the subject, I never made the connection: Ravi Batra was a friend from 25 years ago. Ravi, presently embroiled in the upheaval surrounding the selection and behavior of judges in Brooklyn, embraced me as we quickly reviewed the past and our Council term limit credentials.

I explained why I didn’t connect the Ravi of old from Queens to the well-known Brooklyn trial lawyer.

“Ravi, I assumed it was a common name. Isn’t there an author Ravi Batra?”

“The blankety - blank stole my name,” Batra retorted.

And although we were at a well-attended political event, the two of us took a half hour or so to review, talk term limits and agree that he’d be available to walk me through the rest of the legal adventure as the term limits tweak winds its way through the courts.

I asked Ravi what got him and co-counsel Randy Mastro involved in the case. Who were the real clients footing the bill?

“We are,” Ravi explained. “Randy must be out of pocket a quarter of a million dollars and it’s cost me around $150,000. It’s a matter of public policy. It’s not a matter of politics. I like and support Giff Miller.”

But to Batra, the law is the law and it’s black and white in this case. The Council tried to change the very structure of government by redefining a term. Only the people, by referendum, can do that.

Before parting, I asked him for a simple explanation for my readers as to why he won in Brooklyn Supreme and he is so certain that he will prevail all the way to the State Court of Appeals — the final arbiter on this one.

Batra summed it up simply assuring us that the Appellate Division in Brooklyn would uphold the Supreme Court decision this week and by June, the Court of Appeals will agree.

It’s simple, he said. Picture a house. There are two types of walls: load-bearing, supporting walls and non-supporting walls. You rent a house and you move those interior walls around all you want. The Council can do that.

However, you move a load-bearing wall and that house can come tumbling down. The City Charter says that if you want to change a structural part of government, you need a referendum – the people’s approval. You can’t move a load-bearing wall of government without the vote of the people.

The Council changed the definition of a term in office, Batra explained, a basic part of the governmental structure. It required a referendum. His argument is simple, precise and was accepted by the State Supreme Court.

He described the City Corporation Counsel and City Council’s private attorney (hired with public funds) as unable to deal with the judges’ questions on this matter.

Now I’m not quoting Batra, we had food or drink in our hands as we stood in a noisy room. I was not taking notes. But his words rang true.

They rang true not because I believed in them. They rang true because deep down in this political junkie’s heart, I believe that the system finds ways to protect the small guy – the people.

And it mades a lot of sense for the people to control the load-bearing walls so that the house of government doesn’t come tumbling down around them.

The Game’s Latest Juice

Longtime Queens political operative Corey Bearak, who has spent the past handful of years as a hired gun (he had some real government title) for the office of the Bronx Beep has been in search of a new gunslinger. The guy who used to play Mr. Warmth for Sheldon Leffler has been heard to mimic Ogden Nash’s, “The Bronx, No Thonx!”

Corey has settled into a position with Queens Councilman Jim Gennaro. Gennaro – whose district includes Orthodox Kew Gardens Hills – is in need of building and maintaining support in the Jewish community, which represents the largest voting block in his district.

Gennaro is being challenged by two Jewish candidates: longtime activist Florence Fischer and former Council opponent David Reich. With two in the race, Gennaro has an easy victory. Should one drop out, hardworking Gennaro is still the clear frontrunner.

Bearak – a knowledgeable political operative who is a longtime activist with Queens Jewish organizations – provides Gennaro with a little insurance and was in need of a job.

We’d expect this strange marriage of convenience to last until a little after Election Day.

HARRISON

One of the former Council-members who is said to be carefully watching the term limits case is octogenarian Julia Harrison. Harrison, who had been in elected office for decades until term limited at the end of 2001, has had a rollercoaster-like political experience.

Several misspeaks, including one during an interview with the New York Times, got the former trade unionist labeled as anti-Asian in her very Asian district. Julia fought the racist label, but did not fare well in an attempt to unseat longtime rival State Senator Toby Stavisky.

Now, Harrison is said to have her sights set on another foe, Councilman John Liu.

Should the lower court’s ruling throwing out the term limits tweak be upheld, Harrison would be eligible to run for her old seat which is now held by Liu.

The district is more Asian than before and Liu will be well-funded. But Harrison – even at her age – is a tireless campaigner with the tenacity of a pit bull.

Although the incumbent Liu would be the clear frontrunner, don’t count the controversial Harrison out.

Other former Councilmembers said to be taking a look at their political options include: Morty Povman – who could present a real serious challenge to Gennaro – and Tom White – seemingly the only person who could unseat the lunatic of the Council, Allan Jennings.

Popularity At A Freezing Point;
Mayor Must Warm Our Hearts

By HENRY STERN

Today’s news tells of Mayor Bloomberg’s apparent unpopularity, as documented by the Quinnipiac poll. (The Q-word, by the way, is a small river in Connecticut that flows into Long Island Sound near New Haven. A university named for the river owns the poll, which is directed by Maurice Carroll).

The immediate cause of this dip (or meltdown, depending on your point of view) is the package of tax increases, rent increases and fare increases, all recently imposed and prospective. Then people mention the Mayor’s great wealth, his personality (genial in public, aggressive in private), his inability to inspire, his lack of colorful eccentricities, his diffident speaking style, his courtesy to the Governor (apparently not reciprocated financially), his alleged insensitivity to the plight of the ordinary people in general and the poor in particular, his distaste for indoor smokers, his initial secrecy about his weekend whereabouts, etc.

One problem is that the Mayor is trying to take a left-center course on public issues.  As a result, he satisfies neither the far left nor the near or far right. 

The City Council is far more radical than the Mayor.

They repeatedly override his veto of bills which would make it even more difficult to do business in New York. But on the major policy issue, the size of government, Bloomberg has tilted to the left. 

He sought, and received, billions of dollars in tax increases. While the impact on his own finances is insignificant, the quadruple whammy of sales taxes, property taxes, income taxes and water rate increases hurts people who are less well off. Their resentment of his wealth is aggravated by their perception of his indifference to their plight.

Another irritant is the Mayor’s repeated insistence that there is hardly any waste in City government.

Almost every adult and many wise children know – from personal experience and common knowledge – that there is substantial waste of money, theft of time, and petty bribery in some agencies that are part of a $44 billion budget. One thing I worried about at Parks was our vulnerability to such accusations, because of our far-flung work sites and the problem of supervisors being in the same union as their employees.

When the Mayor denies there is waste and corruption, he flies in the face of reality, and this detracts from his credibility on many other issues on which he is right.

The insularity of the administration has been mentioned, but the truth is that they are all that way.

Every mayor I know has felt himself hounded by enemies and betrayed by leakers. Actually, the Bloomberg team is quite honorable, diligent and cohesive, but, with the exception of the popular and effective Police Commissioner, they have not yet emerged as public personalities. That means, in part, that there is only one man for the public to blame when anything goes wrong. And, in a city of eight million, some things inevitably go wrong.

I wrote a month ago that the Mayor needs a Karl Rove. However, he will never hire one. 

The President of the United States is aware of his limitations. The Mayor does not appear to be.

Nobody is brilliant at everything. That is why it is valuable to take counsel from people whose gifts may complement yours. But the Mayor believes, proudly and honestly, that what he is doing is right. 

His election was an enormous personal achievement, assisted by Mayors Giuliani and Koch, the errors of his opponent, and the tragedy of 9/11. Without those events and endorsements, the money he spent would not have elected him. His victory was a pleasant surprise.

Governing is even harder than getting elected.

In an election, someone must win; you just have to be more popular, or less unpopular, than your opponent. It is far more challenging to bring prosperity and security to a city coping with modest economic decline, fear of terrorism, asthma, more emotional disorder than we care to admit, a rising tax burden, competition from other localities, indifferent sports teams (except for the Yankees), enormous traffic congestion, etc. To deal with these ills while keeping up your poll numbers appears almost impossible, unless one is unusually charming.

The City is fortunate to have Michael Bloomberg as mayor. He is honest, decent and intelligent (89 percent say that). He has appointed able Commissioners. He makes decisions on the merits as he sees them, with little regard for political considerations, and that virtue has impaired his popularity. His prospective opponents are unlikely to match his ability, integrity and sense of fairness.  But they may well match his number of votes.

On May 1, his term was one-third over.  We are now in the second trimester (or the fourth inning). It is time for the Mayor to think strategy as well as substance. It is not a crime for a lion (or even a mouse) to act like a fox.

Henry Stern was NYC Parks Commissioner for fifteen years and a Councilmember for nine. He is founder and director of NYCivic, a good government group. He can be reached at: starquest.nycivic.org