At the Observer, Azi Paybarah brings us a depressing example of how Albany's anti-democratic culture has taken hostage the hearts and minds of so many in our state government. Paybarah interviews 72-year-old Assemblyman Anthony Seminerio (D-Queens), whose review of the budget battle is so cynical you can feel your soul melting as you read it:

“Eliot may wish he had another way, but there’s only one way the budget is ever going to get done, son,” said Mr. Seminerio, sitting by himself in the Assembly chambers Saturday night, hours before the budget deadline. “It’s three people, each getting a piece of the pie, and that’s it.”

[...]

“I don’t know if he learned anything,” Mr. Seminerio said. “I can’t speak for the Governor. I think maybe he understands the process a little better. I think, like everything else, he’ll learn. You know what I’m saying. He’ll learn. And it’s not that he did anything wrong. He thought the process should be done one way, and he thought, you know, he could accomplish it. And now I think he must understand—I can’t speak for him, certainly; you know he’s a brilliant man. I can’t speak for him—but I think he understands now that, hey, you have to sit down, and it’s a give-and-take.”

Waving his left arm in the air toward the empty room, Mr. Seminerio added: “The only thing that ever changes in Albany are the faces. The system stays intact.”

Don't fight it, son. Just take the pills like everyone else and soon you'll see it's all for the best.

What kills me is how so many insiders seem to be insisting that the three-men-in-a-room system somehow represents the democratic virtue of "give-and-take." Sure, in the sense that it's the taxpayers giving and Joe Bruno and Shelly Silver taking. "Give-and-take," in a real democracy, means that everyone - every voter and every lawmaker - is fairly represented in a process of negotiation. When rank and file lawmakers are shut out by the strong leader system, and ordinary voters are shut out by closed-door negotations (and Gov. Spitzer is also partially to blame this time), it's hard to portray the process as being in any sense virtuous. (Grant Reeher suggests that giving the budget process more time would also help bring openness to the process - h/t NYCO.)

This isn't just about the budget - it's about the entire process in Albany. If we want give-and-take, shouldn't we have more hearings on legislation? Shouldn't we have real floor votes? Shouldn't our representatives be free to engage in giving-and-taking without fear of losing their staffs and resources if they cross the leadership? Instead, we're assured by Albany's veterans, again and again, that this is the way it has always been, and nobody's going to change it.

TDG's own reader poll showed that there is, in fact, plenty of interest in changing the way business is done in Albany. And whatever hit Spitzer may have taken in the budget battle, the fact is that the leaders of the legislature are considerably less popular.

But can we translate that sentiment into real change? Or is Seminerio right?

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