Jack Martins, the Republican candidate for county executive, last week proposed term limits for both the county executive and county legislators — two four-year terms for the county executive and five two-year terms for legislators.
Laura Curran, a Democratic candidate for county executive who is expected to oppose Martins, pointed out she had already proposed term limits, 216 days before to be exact.
Curran proposed limiting the county executive, comptroller and clerk to two terms and legislators to six terms when she announced her anti-corruption platform in January.
Nassau County Comptroller George Maragos, Curran’s Democratic primary opponent, wants to limit the county executive and legislators to eight years in office.
None of the candidates were proposing anything new.
New York City and Suffolk County, among others, already have term limits in place.
All three cite term limits as a necessary step to eliminating corruption in county government.
Unstated is a level of incompetence in county government that has left the county’s finances under state supervision for the past 17 years.
Terms limits have their benefits.
They tend to make races more competitive by reducing the advantage incumbents enjoy in name recognition and money spent in their district – whether they were responsible for the money or not.
Terms limits also limit the time spent by deadwood to 10 or 12 years – instead of forever — and potentially offer fresh eyes and fresh ideas.
On the other hand, term limits also force out capable legislators.
This is particularly worrisome in a legislative body made up of part-time people who are supposed to oversee a full-time county executive.
Limiting part-time county legislators to 10 or 12 years in office shifts power to legislative staffs, political parties and full-time county executives even if they are limited to two terms.
Worse, terms limits are undemocratic, preventing people from voting for the person of their choice.
In essence, they imply that voters are not to be trusted to pick the right person.
Based on the current composition of the county’s leadership, this is not necessarily an unfair conclusion.
But there is a better, more democratic way to achieve the goal of fair elections and honest officials — eliminate the drawing of districts to favor one political party over another, a practice known as gerrymandering.
Nassau County Republican legislators used their 10-9 advantage following the last census to virtually ensure that the GOP would hold a 12-7 advantage for the next decade even though registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans in the county and Republican officials appeared to spend more time as defendants than officials.
This was done by bringing the latest computer technology to an old practice done by both Republicans and Democrats.
The GOP has controlled the county Legislature for most of the past 17 years while the state believed it could not trust Nassau with its own finances and while a woman who failed to file campaign finance reports on time for nine years has led the Legislature.
But in figuring out how to manipulate district maps for their political advantage the party did an excellent job. This can be seen in the convoluted contours of districts that make little sense for voters, but preserve a Republican advantage in the county Legislature.
In part, this is the fault of voters. Gerrymandering relies on people voting for the party rather than an individual.
But the burden lies in a system intended to minimize the electoral strength of one side or the other.
The state Legislature, which is nobody’s choice for good government practices, actually approved a constitutional amendment to establish new redistricting procedures for state and federal seats beginning in 2020.
In doing so, the Legislature was actually required to vote in favor of the amendment in two successive legislatures in 2012 and 2013 to qualify it for final approval in a statewide referendum. The amendment became law, receiving 57 percent of the public votes.
Good-government and watchdog groups presented a report to the Nassau County Legislature in 2014 calling for a variety of election reforms that included a recommendation for more participation by independent voters in the once-a-decade redistricting process and limiting influence of political parties and county employees.
“The system is broken,” said Steve McFarland, Nassau organizer for the Long Island Civic Engagement Table, one of the coalition’s nonprofit groups. “We have a redistricting system that puts partisan interests over the interests of voters.”
The proposal fell on deaf ears in the county Legislature.
The authors of the report — which include Common Cause New York, the League of Women Voters of Nassau County, La Fuente and the Long Island Civic Engagement Table — continue to press for the reforms.
So far, however, none of the three candidates for county executive have taken up the call for an independent redistricting commission for Nassau County.
Their support would go a long way in determining whether or not they are really serious about reforming Nassau County’s dysfunctional government.
