Over the past couple of months, we have been inundated with the phrase "On Day 1, everything changes." Oh, if only that were true!

Two years ago, then-Assembly member Scott Stringer went out on a limb and introduced a resolution calling for rules changes in the Assembly, based on the report of the Brennan Center for Justice. I proudly stood on a street corner in Manhattan's lower east side, handing out flyers exhorting local people to call their Assembly member (Sheldon Silver) and demand reform. (Full disclosure -- I was there at the urging of Tracey Denton, grassroots activist extraordinaire. I actually held a sign while she pushed flyers into people's hands.)

So many people called that Silver decided he had to do something, and empty seat voting went the way of the dinosaur. In response, Joe Bruno did something as well -- theoretically ending empty seat voting, while pushing further rules changes into the Rules committee, effectively killing the chances for further rules reform.

It was a start.

This time around, Silver & Co. have managed to clamp down on any rules reform. So Eliot Spitzer can sign executive orders and push for various "reforms" in his State of the State address until he's blue in the face. But since we remain with the "most dysfunctional legislature" in the country, there will be a very long way to go.

How did this happen? Could it be that Silver, Bruno, et. al. (actually, forget the "et. al." -- it's just the Sunshine Twins) are so afraid of Spitzer's resolve to reform New York's state government that they'll do anything to hold on to their waning power? Could it be that the Dreadful Duo are so entrenched in that corruptive power that it doesn't occur to them that when Spitzer says "everything changes," he means them?

Or could there be a (whisper it) back-room deal?

Time will tell. If Governor Spitzer stays true to his word, and uses the bully pulpit of his office, along with his record-setting margin of victory to force changes down the throats of the powers-that-be in the Capitol, it could be a lot of fun. On the other hand, if his glorious words are little more than hot air, we're in for a long four years.

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