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Legislators - selfish reasons to support reform

by: simonstl

Sun Feb 25, 2007 at 09:23:06 AM EST

(Another installment in a fantastic series - promoted by BrooklynRaider)

While the majority party members in each house aren't inclined to admit it, I think a dose of reform might make life in the state legislature a lot more fun for all of its participants, maybe even including the leadership. (Yes, it would take a different kind of leader.)

Why?

Much more room to move. Legislators could build the coalitions they need to address the issues they're working on, without worrying about whether the leadership approves.
Real work! Functioning legislative committees could hold a lot more hearings, study a lot more possibilities, and get to the bottom of things on a regular basis.
Seniority and merit might find better rewards. In a system where the leader is trying to maintain control, being a promising new leader is a ticket to obscurity. In a legislative system that's functioning, it's a ticket to getting things accomplished.

simonstl :: Legislators - selfish reasons to support reform

Legislators could enjoy a lot more voter trust than they enjoy today. Instead of being local color for an operation based in Albany, with lifetime tenure, legislators could be representatives, with all the ups and downs that promises.
No more pretend speed-reading! The budget's gigantic, right? No one really believes legislators even know what's in it when it passes suddenly after a deal. Legislators and their staffs could take a closer look at what goes by.
Easier pay raises! All this real work should make it harder for opponents to argue that legislator pay produces little result.
A full-time job? Instead of the current strange part-time but not exactly we have today, legislators might be able to focus more clearly on the legislature. Yes, it's probably less lucrative than other options, but it does seem lucrative enough to keep those who love legislating in the legislature.
Longer terms for senators? If we're going to have two houses, it probably does make sense to differentiate the Senate and the Assembly on grounds other than size. It might be nice to free the Senate from the treadmill of elections every two years.
No more need to apologize for holding the job. Better yet, no more need to refuse to apologize, which just makes for unpleasant conversation.
Lobbyists or leadership give you trouble? The voters are your real source of power. You can even speak publicly about issues that concern you. Collegiality may still matter, but more open environments tend less toward calls for absolute unity.
(One I forgot.) Ever find yourself visiting a school? And those kids ask you if their Civics class (Participation in Government?) has anything to do with the way New York State runs... You'll be able to tell them yes, it does!

I'm sure there are more reasons, but hopefully this will whet the appetite of at least some legislators. I'm sure they've already thought about it to some extent.

(Selfishness for Upstate | Municipal Officials | Political Parties | Lobbyists)

Tags: coalition, leadership, voters, merit, seniority, full-time, Senate, Assembly, legislator, (All Tags)

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Legislators - selfish reasons to support reform | 2 comments

I've been saying (0.00 / 0)

As much as we criticize legislators, the point is that we want them to have more power, not less. We want them to really be able to represent us. That has got to be a much more appealing prospect for intelligent folks than just making up the numbers for Shelly.

Of course, as they say in the comics, with great[er] power comes great[er] responsibility. And that's the benefit for us ordinary slobs.

What are they smoking? Find out at alien & sedition.

by: BrooklynRaider @ Sun Feb 25, 2007 at 14:40:43 PM UTC

But can we understand each other? (0.00 / 0)

Let's face it -- NYC has not really had to noodle all that much with Albany. Upstate has not wanted to deal with downstate. IOW upstaters have not seen a need for Albany to be something other than a place to transfer dollops of tax dollars from downstate to upstate. I have always wondered about the influence the Burned Over District period has on this attitude. You basically have an upstate culture that produced a bunch of loony perfectionist religious nuts. The narrative in the Damnation of Theron Ware revolves around how upstate WASPS dealt with the dynamism of immigrant life. "They" the others came from elsewhere, i.e. NYC. One can find echoes of this today among the conversation of upstate locals. NYC is still frequently represented as a site filled with inhabitants living a vice-filled life.

Meanwhile, NYC from the Dutch on has seen itself as a topos organized for the making of money. Which in many ways only reinforces the perfectionist upstater's perception of those from NYC; they are non-WASPs only interested in trafficking with the devil's tools -- that is to say money or illicit goods which during the Depression was booze. Hence the two cultures in Albany, downstate and upstate, have not seen much of a need to deal or talk with each other.

Spitzer's tone notwithstanding, I wonder if it will ever change. Are we doomed to just be Appleknockers vs. those from the Big Apple; and perhaps more importantly what does reform mean to these two groups. IMO we are caught in a downstate/upstate solipsistic trap in which each side only hears their side. Mark Blitz blames Albany for the destruction of upstate's industrial base. It is weird because he never seems to ask about the policies that moved Carrier and big chunks of GE to China. Globalization may be a slightly larger factor in Upstate's demise as a manufacturing center instead of Albany. Plus one hastens to add, the folks in Smug City were just too stupid to ever imagine a non-silver halide life. The Brennan Center folks act like the 3 guys in a room happened in a vacuum. IMO more needs to be done in order to explicate why that process was created and seemingly never criticized during its inception. Where was the modern equivalent of Nast? There are just too many silences and unanswered questions for me at this point.

Meanwhile, the financial services end of the NYC economy is threatened by the rise of London and Singapore. IOW both sides need to talk and understand each other before it is too late.

Ah sic transit gloria!

by: ElPocho @ Sun Feb 25, 2007 at 20:12:55 PM UTC