NYS: Divide and Liberate, A Prefect Solution

Alan continuously points out the anachronistic nature of our state’s legislature. The burning question is: Why the fuck does NYS sill need two houses?

The Assembly and the Senate are essentially the same thing, legislative bodies populated by representatives from census-geographic constituencies. One is less numerous in districts which happen to be larger in population. Other than that the difference are zip, nil, nada—a grand exercise in duplication and waste. The only outcome of this setup is inefficiency and obstructionism.

The original architecture (which persists nearly unaltered to this day) of our state’s legislative branch sheepishly copied that of its federal counterpart. Little thought was given to how a state should be governed different than the federal government. This copycatism exists in nearly all other states of the union. It would be one thing if state’s upper houses were merely regional delegate-based bodies with very limited powers reserved only for situations where the main assembly gets out of hand. But not, with little imagination, we just get the same old house with bigger district and fewer hacks.

Today, the state of New York hardly functions like a real state anymore. New York City combined with its downstate hinterlands (being an international finance hub and all) vastly outpopulates and economically outperforms practically everywhere else in a state that happens to be pretty geographically expansive in a comparative context. As a result, the state legislature as a whole is so lopsided in favor of downstate that it is impossible under this system to have it properly represent the needs of the entire state. Downstate’s Assembly delegation might as well be the upper house of the New York City Council. Upstate Assemblymen and Senators find their jobs consist primarily of cutting deals with Downstaters and party bosses. The three men in a room collectively serve no one except their own political clique which exists only for self preservation.

In a state of vastly incongruous regions, the only logical course of action is to decentralize power and decision making. To do this, the state must be broken up into smaller governing regions. For the sake of this proposal, I’ll call these regional units prefectures. We could substitute words like region, caucus, district, delegation, oblast, province, ect. I’ll stick with the former, considering its an imposing word that has big balls when sounded out.

The 5 prefectures of New York:
- New York City
- Long Island
- Lower Hudson
- Upper Hudson (Adiorandack)
- Erie-Ontario (Iroquois)

Each Prefecture will be mostly autonomous when it comes to matters of taxation, regulations, labor laws, “authorities,” and many other things the current state government bungles so effectively. New York City effectively becomes a city-state. Long Island can govern itself as one cohesive unit. The Hudson Valley can finally stand out as its own unique region. The ailing metropolitan areas and hinterlands of Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse (along with the Southern Tier) all face similar challenges and can find a lot of productivity in functioning as a sub-state.

Each of these autonomous regions will have its own legislative body with a “Associate Governor” (alternatively, a “Prefect”) serving in the executive post. This will effectively render the greater state legislature irrelevant and obsolete. This is where we find the beauty of my proposal–the state legislature will now consist of the top members of each Prefecture assembly. Already existing legislators get to earn their keep doing double-duty by skedaddling up to Albany once every six months or so to perform whatever ceremonial functions are left in the hands of the old state government. The New York City Council could even double as the city prefectural assembly. Making the pols actually have to work for their paychecks sounds pretty good to me.

Sometime in the past I proposed chopping up NYS into several smaller states. This would require drastic action within the confines of out national constitution–in other words a task much akin to moving an island-sized boulder with just a few mules. Although still pretty far-fetched, I believe that decentralizing power within the state is a much more attainable goal. People all over the states would support this idea if enough publicity and money were to back such an endeavor. The entrenched political hacks will fight it tooth and nail.

The ugly reality is none of our state’s deep problems can be fixed until Albany’s power structure is dismantled. Luckily, the ugly economic turmoil our nation is going through (it’s only gonna get worse!) right now will give way to a period of great flux and uncertainty. Radical changes have a much higher probability of happening when shit gets crazy. A statewide political coalition, perhaps even a phantom party, will be in order. Goal#1 will be getting a state constitutional convention to happen ASAP. Without that, none of the ideas I’ve outlined will come anywhere close to becoming a reality.

The complaints about problems in this state is never-ending. There ya go, I just listed some viable solutions. Problem solved–if the people actually want to get serious about fixing them.

Why Do We Need You Open Thread

Unicameral Legislature for New York

The Nebraska Legislature has been unicameral since before WWII.  It is also non-partisan.  When a person runs for a legislative seat, his or her party affiliation is not appended to his or her name.  They run on their own merits.

Furthermore, their legislative work is accomplished in 60 or 90 day-long sessions, depending on whether it’s an even or odd-numbered year.  That’s it.

This morning, Dave Debo interviewed Charlyne Berens, author of “Power to the People: Nebraska’s unicameral legislature”.  Regrettably, I didn’t hear the whole interview, but I managed to call in and ask a few questions.  Ms. Berens confirmed that Nebraska legislators don’t take the job to get rich – they earn a meager $12,000 per year and although they do address constituent concerns year-round, they still need to go out and earn a proper living, just like the people they represent.

They are limited to serving two four-year terms.  Voting coalitions are formed issue by issue, as each question presented may affect different parts of the state differently.  There is no majority or minority whip or leadership, and the speaker is elected by all members via secret ballot.

If Nebraska can do it, there’s no reason why a state even as populous as New York couldn’t do it.

We can’t afford two legislative bodies anymore.  We can’t afford to pay them all over $100,000 anymore.  We can’t afford to have them up in Albany all that much, because seldom does any good come from it.  We can’t afford to support their cushy staffs, their cars and drivers, their perks and chairmanships, or their ineptitude.  We can’t afford to have all those legislators and all of their ancillary costs sitting there doing little else but rubber-stamping the decisions made by three men in a room.  We can’t afford to have them lobbied by their former colleagues.  We can’t afford their ingrained partisan fealty to various and sundry special interests.  We can’t afford pointless coups.

Yes, it’s time to adopt the Nebraska legislative model in New York and make our legislature smaller, leaner, cheaper, non-partisan, and efficient.

(Photo by Flickr user durundal).

Pedro Espada (D-Opportunism)

Pedro Espada, the guy whose house is in Mamaroneck, but somehow got his ass elected state senator from a Bronx district, decided to re-align himself with the Democrats in the State Senate.  For this week, anyway.

Missing from the mix, naturally, is any sort of rational explanation as to why we need a State Senate at all, for any reason.

But in the end, it would be my wish that the senate Democrats go out of their way to shun and reject Espada.  The fact that it’s being reported that he’s being promised a leadership position – Senate Majority Leader – only underscores the uselessness of the State Senate, the power hunger of Espada and his political benefactors, and the shamelessness of Senate Democrats in general.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kk1Ut1CkXoI[/youtube]

Each and every one of them should be relegated to the dreaded private sector with all celerity, and the Democrats in the State Senate can go fuck themselves for having anything to do with this piece of shit.  Pedro Espada?  Majority Leader?  Have you no shame?