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minutes 01-15-00Page 16 of 59
<br />YUEN: Term limits are legal on a State level down. The congressional term limits are unconstitutional, when States have
<br />passed limits on how many times you can re-elect your own Congress member, but on the local level, it’s legal.
<br />HERKES: Nobody’s challenged it?
<br />YUEN: Oh, I’m sure there’s been challenges, but the public has the right to create term limits unless there is some overriding
<br />law that says you can’t, and it’s not prohibited by the Federal Constitution, which has a term limit for the President. It’s not
<br />prohibited by the State Constitution in this State, at least. Probably not in any state. And so, at the Charter level, the voters are
<br />free to put in whatever term limits they want because the individual who’s in office - their right to stay in office is at the end
<br />of every term, so they don’t have a right to stay in a particular office forever, and the public doesn’t have the right to keep
<br />voting for somebody that they like, if the public, in the past, made a decision that they were going to impose term limits
<br />across the board, they didn’t put any exceptions. If they want to keep the people in, they may have to change that Charter
<br />provision.
<br />RAY: George.
<br />MARTIN: On what you were saying, John, I agree that an individual would not have his or her opportunity on the at-large if,
<br />in fact, we do go with it, and the public accepts it, and it’s a four-year situation. But I believe we can write into the Charter,
<br />and because there’s only, I believe, six individuals that this would pertain to, those individuals that would have that
<br />opportunity, once they’re out of office, it would no longer be an issue.
<br />RAY: We did have six new people come in in ‘96 so all those six, if they’re still in office, would be effected by this. That
<br />means all those six, when this would take place, presumably in 2002, none of those six could run for at-large seats under the
<br />present term limits, so that’s -
<br />HERKES: Let’s pass it. Sorry, I couldn’t resist.
<br />RAY: Which does seem contrary to the - so anyhow, I’m just bringing that up. So that just points out the six people,
<br />presumably, in terms of their experience and what they could contribute, all six would be precluded from running for a four-
<br />year term, and presumably, those people, if they’ve been elected, and could get elected, are the six people you’d most want to
<br />be elected, I would think.
<br />MARTIN: But we have only three positions. Only three of them would be able to win.
<br />RAY: I understand. Sue.
<br />IRVINE: Lexington Charter does not seem to address this problem, either the transition or whether the term limits apply from
<br />the single member districts to the at-large. They just seem to be separate in here, and it doesn’t address what we’re worrying
<br />about.
<br />RAY: It would be interesting to see if they are treated as separate offices, and how that works in other - I’d be interested.
<br />Daryl.
<br />KUROZAWA: There’s actually one other option. If you don’t want to mess with the term limits, the other option would be
<br />that an at-large be run at six years, but they would have to step down in two years. We’re just saying that if they know they
<br />have an eight-year limit, they can run after their second term of their two-year term.
<br />RAY: Yes. We want to make this as simple as possible, so the harder it is to understand, the more confusing it is in the ballot
<br />booth, and the more chances are that people are just going to throw up their hands and just, kind of, give up and mark it willy
<br />nilly, which probably, most people, on most of these things, do anyway. Roland.
<br />HIGASHI: So, where are we going to begin with the draft?
<br />MARTIN: I thought I made a motion.
<br />YOSHIYAMA: It died lack of a second.
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