Onondaga County helping to clear the path for reform!

Onondaga County residents have an opportunity to do something most people in New York won’t: to vote on a local ballot proposition that would institute term limits for their county legislators. The proposal would extend terms from two to four years and limit the number of terms a legislator can serve to three, or 12 years total.

What’s truly unique about this situation is the Legislators who would be impacted by the measure are the ones who introduced it and got it on the ballot. What's more? It was a truly bipartisan effort.

Term limits have long been a popular measure among voters—according to Unite NY’s latest Voter Empowerment Index, 84 percent of New Yorkers support them—but, for obvious reasons, don’t often get the spotlight from those elected officials who would be limited by them.

You can read more about term limits, and why they help, here. To summarize: new faces bring new ideas and help reduce corruption that comes with power.

Support for term limits crosses party lines, age groups, and geography. The message is clear: voters want real choices and those voters in Onondaga County have a chance to get them.

At Unite NY, we believe reforms like these will strengthen democracy in our state. Our five pillars of reform, including term limits, open primaries, ranked choice voting, citizen ballot initiatives, and better ballot access, each make our government more responsive and more accountable, giving voters more power.

This small but mighty measure, hopefully, is just the beginning!

(Polls are open on Election Day, Tuesday November 4th from 6am to 9am. Early voting is from Saturday Oct 26th to Sunday November 2nd. Find your Onondaga County polling place here.)