Fix this government
The surest sign New York voters should approve a state Constitutional Convention in the once-every-two-decades opportunity coming this November is the caterwauling against the con con among the power players in Albany’s Legislature. A threat to the rights New Yorkers hold dear, frets Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie.
A gazillon-dollar boondoggle, projects Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan.
An open invitation “in this dangerous era of Trump” for “powerful corporate interests” to wreak havoc, warns Senate Minority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins.
The lady — and gentlemen — doth protest too much.
The singular truth, and at the root of their fears, is that Election Day referenda will enable citizens to clean up New York’s rotten system of government, in ways highly inconvenient to the power of legislative leaders and the special interests that butter their English muffins.
New York’s Constitution, older than our nation’s, reaches at once toward powerfully high aspirations and low bogs of muck.
Among the high points: a guarantee that the Adirondack Park will “be forever kept wild” and, as of 1938, assertions that promoting public health, educating all kids and aiding the needy are the government’s obligation.
But our state Constitution also lies at the root of some unacceptable failings, among them: l A byzantine court system, with a preposterous 11 different tiers in some places and 13 different levels in other areas. All those patronage jobs cost the state dearly while complicating the delivery of justice. l Voter registration restrictions that give New York one of the lowest rates of election turnout in the nation, prohibiting same-day registration and mail-in voting. l The power of state lawmakers to gerrymander districts to preserve their own perches, and to ultimately control their own ethics reviews.
Delegates to a convention — who would run for election in 2018 if voters do the right thing and say yes this Nov. 7 — could consider solutions to any of the above plagues and much more.
They would then put the results before the people for approval, a step that should put to rest any fears in this majority-Democratic state that a runaway convention would strip cherished protections for union organizing or welfare benefits.
Gov. Cuomo, almost alone among Albany leaders, has voiced his support, in echo of his father’s failed effort to get a convention called the last time New York had a shot, in 1997.
The words this Editorial Board wrote in support of a con con back then hold, to the letter, today, their resonance over time only underlining the necessity of finally fixing festering flaws:
“The state’s government is a scandalous embarrassment. It is tilted to keep incumbents in power, to please special interests and to thwart reform. It is a system that, even on its good days, is maddeningly dysfunctional.”
At a moment of pervasive political cynicism and a hopelessness that government can get much good done, New York has a chance to renew itself for the sake of future generations.
Take it.