Shifting deck chairs on the Titanic?

The Democracy in Albany blog lauds a recent letter to the editor of the Albany Times-Union.

The blog offers particular praise for this passage: Given the sheep-like propensity of most voters to return incumbents to office, and our regrettable societal reluctance toward storming the state Capitol with pitchforks and a guillotine, we can only look forward to eternally living with the most dysfunctional legislature in the nation.

I'm afraid that however well-intentioned DIA's author may be, s/he is missing the point. In fact, the sheep quality is the reluctance of citizens to even consider the possibility voting for smaller parties.

It's widely acknowledged that both Republicans and Democrats are about equally responsible for the mess in Albany. The GOP has run the state Senate for all but 4 of the last 67 years; the Democrats have controlled the Assembly for as long as I can remember. People were complaining about Albany dysfunction under the Democratic Gov. Mario Cuomo just as they are now under the Republican Gov. George Pataki.

So if both major parties share more or less equal blame for the mess in Albany, is it really going to revolutionize things to replace a Democrat incumbent with a Republican or vice versa?

I admit there is a small, residual benefit of showing that incumbents can actually lose and accountability can occasionally rear its menacing head. But will shifting the deck chairs on the Titanic really produce the major transformation that Democracy in Albany and so many others want?

The real way to change things in the legislature is to send members of smaller parties there. Send people to the legislature who aren't beholden to Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver or Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno. Send people there who don't owe their jobs to being in the good graces of the Democratic or Republican establishments. Send people there who will bring a fresh voice, a new perspective, a badly needed independent streak and, most of all, a desire to be relevant.

This will necessarily weaken the iron-fisted control of Speaker Silver and Sen. Bruno. Democracy can only begin to take hold in Albany once absolute power is wrested away from two men and seized back by ordinary legislators. Since Democrat and GOP lawmakers have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that they don't have the guts to demand such a move, we need to send others there who do.