The Democrats are entering the 2008 election cycle in New York with the wind at their backs, aided in no small part by the collapse of the republican party both nationally and at the state level. All of New York's statewide elected officials are Democrats, including the governor, the attorney general, both U.S. Senators and even the comptroller, a race won by a Democrat under the shadow of indictment. To properly gauge the catatonic state of the republican party in this state, look no further than the re-election of Alan Hevesi.
The goals for the 2008 cycle are clear: knock off a few more republican Members of Congress, carry the state's electoral votes for a Democratic Presidential nominee - more of a challenge if the matchup turns out to be Hillary versus Rudy [1], but still winnable even in that scenario - and, lastly, wiping out the last bastion of republican power in the state, the two-seat Senate majority that enables Joe Bruno, obstructionist in chief in the Albany drama of dysfunction.
Once the Senate falls, New York will be a deep blue state without a real, functioning republican party in practical terms.
So then what?
Conventional wisdom says that, once the Democrats attain the majority in the Senate, they will reform the way that body does business, enacting real rules reform along the lines of the Brennan Center Report [2]. This assumption is key to the quasi-alliance between Democratic partisans and reformers, and is based on a simple observation: that New York's sclerotic legislature, branded with cause the worst in the nation, can only be changed when a majority changes. It is hoped that this turnover, coupled with reform, will then shame the lower house, the Assembly, currently a medieval fiefdom run like a manor house with so many vassals by Sheldon Silver, into becoming an acceptable semblance of an actual legislature; this despite the observable fact [3] that shame is a concept foreign to the Assembly as a body.
The leverage to bring this change about is two-fold: for one thing, the people of New York demand it, as evidenced by the deep disdain [4] in which the legislature is held, for another, Democrats need the help of reformers to achieve their partisan goals.
With a view to what party monocracy looks like in practice - Brooklyn, The Bronx and Queens come immediately to mind - reformers would do well to insist on iron-clad guarantees before they commit to assisting the Democrats in this effort.
On the one hand, taking the state Senate is key to enacting the Spitzer agenda, a key selling point, even if that agenda is astonishingly enough not spelled out comprehensively anywhere online. On the other, one-party rule in New York has been destructive of citizen participation and actual democracy wherever it has taken hold.
For an example of what we need to avoid, look no further than that Democratic bastion, Brooklyn. It has the lowest voter participation rates in the state. After the next election, the borough will be soiled by the presence on a court bench of Noach Dear [5], a noted bigot and racist, thereby neatly ending the possibility of justice in that courtroom for gay and Muslim New Yorkers. The last county chair of the Democratic Party is currently serving a term in a Federal prison. For all intents and purposes, Brooklyn does not have elections - it has acclamations. A borough that should of right be a center of Progressivism labors instead under the iron rule of an incumbent party monocracy that crushes, sometimes literally, citizen participation, using Byzantine ballot rules, spurious court challenges, and, as in the case of Dear, occasionally promotion of reptilian troglodytes out of competition. The goal of the Democratic machine in Brooklyn - and in The Bronx and Queens - is not governance, or small-d democracy, it is rule for the sake of power, incumbency and patronage. Just one small example: in Queens, the official Democratic Party refuses to recognize the Queens County Young Democrats - out of fear of breeding potential rivals to the Incumbency, which is doing very nicely in that borough, thank you very much.
The current status quo in Albany is unacceptable, and it's clear that Joe Bruno must go. Thankfully, he seems to be doing whatever it is that can humanly be done to prove his own irrelevance, as the ongoing saga of Spitzer vs. Bruno [6] demonstrates. However, the defeat of Joe Bruno is not enough. New Yorkers need to ensure that the post-Bruno era does not become merely the exchange of one machine for another.
Failing what seems an increasingly attractive option - the Federal or state oversight of outer-borough Democratic machines - that means a few things that, if New York voters have any sense whatsoever, they will demand of Democrats seeking a Senate majority: first, non-partisan, independent redistricting. Second, campaign finance reform, including a viable system for public financing of campaigns similar to Clean Money Clean Elections [7]. Third, rules reform in the legislature - real rules reform, not some cosmetic fix that makes Malcolm Smith merely a Democratic Joe Bruno or, worse yet, a Sheldon Silver clone.
Lastly, it's time to consider term limits for the legislature. A decade, say, is long enough for any one person to be serving the public. Take just one example, Joe Lentol [8]:
Assemblyman Joseph R. Lentol has represented North Brooklyn in the New York State Legislature since 1972. He is a lifelong resident of New York City, whose father and grandfather both also served in the New York State Legislature.
That likely adds up to a century of service by members of one family in the legislature, with the current incumbent having sat in his seat for a third thereof. Even if Lentol is Solon himself, it's hardly healthy for a democracy to return anyone for that long a time; nor is he the only one, as anyone who's ever heard the name Boyland can attest. It is worse, far worse, in the state Senate.
The Democratic agenda is far better than the republican version. Two words: universal healthcare. That said, if we want to make this state a better place to live, work and raise a family, we need to ensure that we have better, fresher Democrats as well. One-party rule is not without its dangers, a point Joe Bruno and his allies are entirely certain to stress (that, indeed, is the strategic impetus behind the current dramatics); the Democrats owe it to New Yorkers, and to themselves, to ensure that the choice of giving them complete control of the state government will be rewarded by a rebirth of democracy, not by the exchange of one flavor of hacks for another.
We can't tolerate more Joe Brunos; not even if they happen to be named Malcolm Smith, or whomever else victorious Senate Democrats happen to choose. We need a real legislature and actual, competitive elections. Anything less is not acceptable, and should be rejected out of hand.
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