To overturn term limits and run again, Mayor Michael Bloomberg (Ind.) has two ways of getting there and a labyrinth of obstacles in his way.

Assuming Bloomberg is able to convince the City Council to vote to amend the law governing term limits, good government groups that oppose him—Common Cause, the New York Public Interest Research Group, among others—are likely to sue to prevent this change. Two court cases may then come into play: the 2003 appellate court decision that upheld amending the law to allow several New York City council members who had served part of a single term after a special election win to serve that time plus two additional terms, and the 1961 appellate ruling affirming the Buffalo city council’s decision to repeal term limits.

Opponents of Bloomberg’s plan could conceivably make the case that the changes the mayor is seeking are more substantive than the 2003 amendments, and therefore require a voter referendum, some election lawyers say. Given the public’s overwhelming support for term limits, this could derail Bloomberg’s goals.

The possibility has also been raised that a bill amending term limits could be a potential conflict of interest for Bloomberg and members of the City Council, since the reported plan would only amend the law as it applies to all current office holders.

But if the 1961 and 2003 decisions are enough for the Court of Appeals to quash any challenge to the mayor’s efforts, Bloomberg would still need to get on the ballot. According to several election lawyers, that means taking one of two available paths.

First, if he is willing to change his party status, Bloomberg could try to get on the ballot line of one of the city’s five political parties.

Under the Wilson-Pakula provision of the state’s election law, that would require three of the five county chairs to give Bloomberg permission to appear on their party’s ballot line. With several strong mayoral candidates still waiting in the wings, Democrats appear unlikely to give the mayor their line. Seemingly neither would the Independence Party, the Conservative Party, nor the Working Families Party. Even though he dropped the Republican Party in 2007 in anticipation of a presidential run, returning to the GOP appears to be Bloomberg’s best bet. Guy Molinari, the dean of Staten Island’s Republican Party, said he predicted that the city GOP would be willing to bring the mayor back into the fold.

“I’m sure if he asked the Republicans, they would give them that,” Molinari said. “The first thing they want is a good mayor, and he’s a good mayor.”

Bloomberg has doled out money to State Senate Republicans and endorsed Republican candidates since dropping the party. He has also, however, backed several Democrats, including candidates like Council Member Michael McMahon in the spirited race for Congress in Staten Island and the progressive Daniel Squadron in his primary race for State Senate for a district covering Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn Heights. And the mayor has tapped very few Republicans to serve in his administration and he has sought to distance himself from both major parties since announcing last June that he was dropping the GOP label.

Despite his high approval numbers, if Bloomberg wanted to run for re-election as a Republican, he would need to focus on repairing a lot of relationships, Molinari said.

“The first thing he’d have to do is reach out to the Republican leadership, the elected officials, the county chairs and get a dialogue with them,” he said. “That won’t be a major problem, but you can’t take that stuff for granted.”

Also, running as a Republican would leave Bloomberg open to a primary challenge. Supermarket mogul John Catsimatidis, who indicated he is still exploring a mayoral run despite Bloomberg’s plans to change the term limits law, would be one option. Notably, though, Catsimatidis considered running in 2005 but opted not to challenge Bloomberg then.

If he decides to skip the fence mending and returning to the very party leaders he has so often chastised on bended knee, Bloomberg could petition his way onto the ballot as an independent. That would leave him on the sixth row on the ballot, behind the nominees of all the city’s major parties. Without the base of support from one party and the visibility from a central spot on the ballot, Bloomberg—who needed several ballot lines to put together a winning number of votes in 2001—could have significant problems.

But for a candidate who has demonstrated his willingness to spend unprecedented amounts of cash on his campaigns, ballot placement may not matter too much to Bloomberg.

“Do you think he would spend enough money to educate voters as to where on the ballot he is?” said Jerry Goldfeder, an election attorney, somewhat sarcastically.

To get on the ballot, all Bloomberg has to do is acquire the signatures of 7,500 registered voters and file the petition by the eleventh Tuesday before next year’s general election.

Any legal challenges to a change in the term limits law would likely be resolved by that point, said Laurence Laufer, a partner at Genova, Burns & Vernoia and head of the firm’s Corporate Political Activity Law Practice Group.

“If it happens this fall, I think that any legal challenge would likely be brought soon after the law is adopted,” Laufer said.  

So if he is looking to change the law, the next year and a half appear to be all mapped out for Bloomberg. All he has to do is wrangle a law out of the sometimes unpredictable City Council, fend off any legal challenges, get on the ballot, build up another multi-million dollar campaign, and present his case to the voters.

Managing all of that while still running the city’s government could prove to be a difficult task for Michael Bloomberg. But as the mayor likes to say, it is easier to govern in difficult times than it is in flush times. 

ahawkins@cityhallnews.com

photo by Andrew Schwartz