EDITORIAL: Tread carefully on state reform

Editorials

September 1, 2009

Anonymous The Niagara Gazette Tue Sep 01, 2009, 06:38 PM EDT

The abysmal failure of the current state government in Albany has provoked an understandable outcry for reform.

In the heat of debate, irate citizens have offered remedies running the gamut from “throw-all-incumbents-out and start over” to a constitutional convention to rewrite the coveted document that has shaped New Yorkers lives for centuries.

The tumult and shouting over the dysfunctional structure that has virtually paralyzed activity on Capitol Hill for months is thoroughly justified.

The very voters screaming that they’re fed up and won’t take it anymore are in the position to spur long-overdue change.

Recent polls make it abundantly clear that nearly 50 percent of the eligible voters are so upset by all the shenanigans in Albany that they would not hesitate for a moment to turn their own state senator out of office in 2010.

That’s a refreshing change from earlier times when dissatisfied voters were often reluctant to vote against their own senator. After all, many voters convinced themselves their representative in Albany was doing the best possible job.

Things could change, of course, within the next 14 months, but the lawmakers in both houses would have to adopt an entirely different attitude toward the way they conduct business.

Today, those same voters are apparently weighing yet another approach to fixing the broken system: a constitutional convention.

At a glance that might seem a viable option but voters need to be wary of the inherent pitfalls as well.

In 1997, the last time that voters even considered the proposal for a convention, the measure was trounced by a coalition of conservative activists, labor unions and environmental groups encouraged by state lawmakers who traditionally abhor any idea of changing the power structure in Albany.

If voters really believe that a constitutional convention would bring needed reform, they should at least demand incumbent lawmakers be excluded from the process.

Since the delegates are paid — as they should be — the incumbents would end up with a second salary, hardly what a state mired in a fiscal crisis needs.

A constitutional convention is bound to fail if professional politicians are put in charge.

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