At the rate they're going, New York's state legislature, and in particular the Senate, might just as well end the farce, leave the building, and set it on fire.

If you haven't been paying attention, this is what happened: a Democratic state Senator, one Hiram Monserrate, was found guilty of slashing his girlfriend in the face last year before Christmas. However, there are degrees of guilt, apparently, leaving a hole large enough for none other than bigoted shitbag Ruben Diaz to jump through.

The New York Times:

Calls for Mr. Monserrate to resign drew angry responses from his allies, including Senator Rubén Díaz Sr. of the Bronx. “Senator Monserrate was found guilty of trying to do good by forcing his girlfriend to go to the hospital for treatment,” Mr. Diaz said in a statement on Thursday afternoon.

Actually, that wasn't the point of the whole matter. It's not as if Mr. Monserrate's companion had been in need of treatment before he, well, slashed her face with a broken glass.

On the other hand, there's fury. Dicker

Democratic Chairman Jay Jacobs, in some of the strongest language yet heard in the wake of Monserrate's conviction for assaulting his girlfriend, told The Post that if his party is to stand for anything, it must force the Queens lawmaker out. [...]

"I am very adamant that this party has to stand for something, and it's at moments like these that we either demonstrate that we live by our principles or recognize that they're just good marketable tools.

The Senate, more even than the Assembly, is the place where talent and good ideas go to die a slow death from inattention and incompetence. That problem won't be solved any time soon; at the rate this legislature is going, it might be generations before we have what other states and many third-world countries take for granted, a functioning, responsive legislature.

What we have today is a more immediate challenge: for the Senate to maintain the barest shreds of public respect, it needs to act quickly and decisively to expel Hiram Moneserrate. We'll see how that goes. But there is something you can do: sign the petition at Fire Monserrate. The citizens of New York, however low our standards may have become, shouldn't tolerate people who slah other people's faces. Sounds simple, doesn't it?