Letter: Suffolk, honor 1993 term-limit vote
Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota, outside the Suffolk County Legislature Building in Hauppauge. Credit: James Carbone
The 1993 Suffolk County referendum restricting elected officials to three terms is legal and binding. It is only being challenged because District Attorney Thomas Spota would be prevented from running for office again. I am an intervenor in this lawsuit, and I am determined to see this law remain intact ["DA's sights set on end of term limits," News, June 10].
Spota, Sheriff Vincent DeMarco and Clerk Judith Pascale are asking the State Supreme Court for an advisory opinion and claiming that term limits don't apply to them because their offices were created by the state constitution. Somehow, voters must have been mistaken in choosing to limit their terms to 12 years.
I am appealing to the state to preserve the law against three government officials who are chafing under restraints placed on them by the public. The lawyers, judges and plaintiffs all seem to know each other, and this does not give me much confidence that the term limits will survive. I may have to go outside Suffolk County to a higher court to uphold the term limits referendum.
This is exactly why we need term limits -- to protect the will of the people from the politically ambitious, and to check power from becoming too great in the hands of the well-connected and well-heeled.
Peter Nichols, Melville
