Growing Number of NYC Mayoral Candidates Pledge Support for Maintaining Term Limits

Ray McGuire and Kathryn Garcia joined Shaun Donovan, Andrew Yang, and Maya Wiley recently in supporting limited terms for those elected to local office.

A number of candidates running for New York City mayor have pledged to support term limits for those elected to city office.

Business leader Ray McGuire and Kathryn Garcia, the former city sanitation commissioner, joined Shaun Donovan, Andrew Yang, and Maya Wiley this week and last in supporting limited terms for those elected to local office, pledging as mayor to veto any legislation that would repeal or amend the current eight-year limit city officials are constrained to. 

“McGuire, Garcia, Yang, Donovan and Wiley are to be commended for standing by the term limits approved by New York City residents,” said Philip Blumel, president of U.S. Term Limits, a national advocacy group with the goal of passing term limits on all elected officials, in a Wednesday statement. “These candidates know this issue resonates with a majority of the voters. The Big Apple needs a mayor who serves the people, not career politicians.”

More than 70 percent of respondents in a citywide survey of 500 registered voters on term limits, conducted by RMG Research for U.S. Term Limits, said they would be more likely to support a candidate that pledges to support existing rules, which limit the mayor and members of the City Council to two four-year terms. Those limits were passed by voters in 2010, reversing an earlier and controversial move by Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the Council that allowed elected officials to serve three terms. 

In 2017, then-City Councilmember Jumaane Williams—now the city’s public advocate—introduced a bill that would’ve restored councilmembers’ to serve a third consecutive term (the bill had the support of just one other councilmember, Ydanis Rodriguez).

Nearly 80 percent of those polled in the RMG Research December survey said they also supported eight-year term limits for the governor of New York, a position that is not subject to term limits. Andrew Cuomo, the current governor, has been in the position for 10 years.

In the same poll, 75 percent of respondents said they supported eight-year term limits for state legislators, who are not currently subject to any limits on how many terms they can serve.