Want reform? Prove it

Like a flyweight amateur getting in the ring against the heavyweight champ, the ballot measure calling for a state constitutional convention hit the canvas hard and fast: Voters rejected it by a ratio of 5 to 1. It was a bitter but resounding victory for the forces that rule the roost in New York’s stickily corrupt government. Now, they can sit smugly for 20 years — when the state Constitution mandates another vote of the people — and they can mount another campaign scaring the bejeezus out of the electorate about daring to push for ethics reform.

Those forces — bankrolled by unions — poured $4 million into a dishonest TV ad campaign to defeat the convention, and got their money’s worth.

Students of Orwell, perhaps, they called their group New Yorkers Against Corruption, and cynically claimed to care deeply about dredging a swamp that makes Washington look pristine. Their objection to a convention, they said, was that it could go awry; it wasn’t worth the risk.

Which brings us to the put-up-or-shut-up challenge to the folks who made up New Yorkers Against Corruption: If you really want to clean up Albany, keep yourself in business — and start waging an ongoing campaign against the way politicians do business in New York.

We have the perfect place to start, an easy fix that will increase voter participation and save $25 million next year.

In each election year of 2012, 2014 and 2016, New York wasted $25 million by holding primaries for congressional office separately from primaries for state and local offices. The extra primary depressed turnout, just as incumbents like it — and squandered taxpayer dollars to boot.

All because the Democrats in the Assembly want the combined primary in June, and the Republicans in the Senate want it in August.

Since they still can’t agree, that’s the outlook for 2018 again: more annoyance for voters and another $25 million down the drain.

In the name of empowering we, the people, New Yorkers Against Corruption should demand that they settle on a single date.

Then, the group must start using its formidable clout as Albany insiders to force the change it claims to believe in.

Demand the Legislature make it easier to register to vote.

Break the partisan grip on the Board of Elections. Make early voting the law of the land. Reduce the outrageously high donation limits that allow contributions of $65,000 to a candidate for statewide office — and enable people who control shell corporations to give without caps.

Put ceilings on outside income for legislators, if not eliminate it altogether.

The list of urgent reforms is long — unless, that is, New Yorkers Against Corruption were just pretending to care about corruption all along.