There's a thoroughly remarkable piece in today's Albany Times-Union that New Yorkers interested in the reform of our notoriously un-small-D-democratic state government should read.

When Paul Newell and Luke Henry were toddlers just learning to talk 31 years ago, a young trial lawyer from the Lower East Side of Manhattan named Sheldon Silver was cutting his political teeth as a freshman assemblyman.

This year, Newell and Henry are challenging Assembly Speaker Silver, now one of state government's three most powerful politicians. It marks the first time in more than two decades that Silver has faced opposition in a primary.

Beautiful, but here's the real meat:

While Newell and Henry admit they're at a financial disadvantage, they think there's a desire for change in the district that will benefit them.

"I feel like change is in the air," Henry said. "I feel like I'm part of a citizenry that is saying to ourselves that we need more from our government, and we actually have the means to effect it."

Both argue Silver has been in Albany too long. They say he's lost touch with his electorate.

Newell believes the Legislature needs a 12-year term limit. This would give legislators enough time to develop expertise but not enough to become entrenched, he said.

Nothing, one can imagine, sends as chilly an air of discomfort through the enbalming chamber that is the state legislature than that horrific idea of term limits, implying as it does that seats in that body should not be lifetime sinecures. Blasphemy.

...or rather, one of many such problems, is this: representatives stay there far longer than they are useful or connected to the needs of their own districts. Consider the numbers.

The average length of employment in the United States, per a 1998 study, is 6.6 years. Of the 106 Democratic members of the New York State Assembly, 51 were elected in this decade. 31 came to their seats in the nineties; 16 in the eighties; and eight members have been in office since the seventies, including, of course, Speaker Silver himself.

The 106 Democratic members of the Assembly have, cumulatively, spent 1,335 years in Albany. That is, on average, twelve years and seven months, or roughly twice as long as the average U.S. employee remains in a given job.

File this one under: “Predictions from the Rock”. Watch it blow up and then come back to me later. You see, this is the month that Diane Gordon goes on trial over her alleged bribery caper. Remember the video tapes, where we saw Ms. Gordon seemingly attempt to bribe a developer into building her a dream house in some gated community in Queens; well unless they postpone the trial she will be soon getting her day in court. So what are my predictions?

Firstly; I predict that Diane will be going to jail, not passing go, and not collecting the 200 dollars from passing (monopoly). This of course opens up her assembly seat in a special election. And cousins, this is where it gets sexy (politically speaking, that is).

You see, when Charles Barron announced earlier this summer that he was running for Brooklyn’s borough presidency, he also said some rather interesting things. No; I am not talking about his pledge to finally, “take care of black folks”; I am talking about his observation that no other black could win that race once he is in it. He is correct; profoundly so. Yet, Charles is also quite pragmatic when he is backed into a corner. He must know also that the corollary is just as true: if other blacks run, he too will lose. So what is a man to do here folks?

Brooklyn Attorney Steve Harrison and Staten Island educator Mark Zink will announce the forming of the non-partisan SIBRO Civic Association in a 7 PM July 18 press conference at the Staten Island South Beach Boardwalk Gazebo overlooking Southwest Brooklyn. For disclosure purposes, I'm SIBRO's acting corresponding sec.

SIBRO (Staten Island/Brooklyn) Civic Association is dedicated to narrowing the Narrows and bridging the gap between people who live on opposite sides of the bridge, focusing issues that impact Staten Island and Southwest Brooklyn residents together.

They brainstormed the idea in January 2006, before Steve ran for congress, in popular Staten Island hangout Schaffer's. Schaffer's is one of my favorite Staten Island bars because of their extensive beer selection (I'm a beer geek) although I'm always puzzled how they can close before midnight on Saturdays.

Recently, the New York State Assembly narrowly passed legislation favoring same-sex marriages, despite the fact that a federal statute (Defense of Marriage Act) legally defines marriage as strictly between a man and a woman. Proponents of this measure have argued that it’s about equality, civil-rights, justice and human-rights for all; but is it really? To me, the same-sex marriage debate is ostensibly an attempt by advocates to redefine traditional marriage, which for eons in civil society, has been in essence: quasi-religious ceremonial arrangements/agreements between men and women; which society, culture, religion and government, sanctioned, blessed, approved, encouraged, formalized, legalized and such; for myriad positive and sensible reasons.

In 1995, the Supreme Court ruled in Romer v. Evans, striking down a homophobic constitutional amendment in the state of Colorado:

We must conclude that Amendment 2 classifies homosexuals not to further a proper legislative end but to make them unequal to everyone else. This Colorado cannot do. A State cannot so deem a class of persons a stranger to its laws. Amendment 2 violates the Equal Protection Clause, and the judgment of the Supreme Court of Colorado is affirmed.

Stonewall Dems email over announcing that the winner of yesterday's special election in Staen Island is Matt Titone. Titone will take the seat of the late John Lavelle, representing the North Shore of the borough.

The New York Times:

In a special election yesterday, Staten Islanders elected the borough’s first openly gay official by selecting Matthew Titone to a State Assembly seat on the island’s north shore...

The Staten Island race in the 61st Assembly District drew a great deal of attention because of Mr. Titone and his two rivals. The Independence Party candidate, Kelvin Alexander, would have been the borough’s first black assemblyman had he prevailed. And Rose Margarella, the Republican candidate, would have been the first of her party to be elected from this heavily Democratic district in recent history.

With 100 percent of the votes counted, Mr. Titone received 2,888 votes, Ms. Margarella 1,846 and Mr. Alexander 1,122, according to unofficial figures from the New York City Board of Elections.

The question that should be asked, however, is whether Titone will actually represent his constituents, or become yet another faceless vote drone in the Assembly.

The City Board of Elections denied Independence Party candidate to replace the late John Lavelle representing Staten Island’s North Shore in the March 27 Special Election Kelvin Alexander’s bid to place his made up Family First line (Not to be confused with Working Families which supports Democratic opponent Matt Titone ) as an additional line on the ballot. The board ruled that 611 of the petition’s 1616 signatures were invalid, leaving him short of the 1100 he needed for that additional line.

Alexander, a Staten Island Democratic County Committee member, is running on the Independence line and potentially turning a potential easy Democratic win into an opportunity for Republican Rose Margarella because the party chose Titone over him. He is undecided if he’ll fight the ruling with the state Supreme Court.

Alexander has accused any challenge of his fabricated party petition as marginalizing minority voters. I find that a stretch since he’s already on the ballot as a better known party’s candidate.

I also need to clarify that I am supporting Titone in this race. I have donated money to Titone, campaigned with Matt and have a Titone sign on my front lawn. There are some comments on the Link TextStaten Island Advance’s SIlive political forum that take out of context my initial backing of Alexander in the Daily Gotham. Although I would have voted for Alexander in the first round of voting at the County Convention had I been allowed to participate, I would have switched to Titone in subsequent rounds. Also for the SIlivers who read my blog, I was not one of the January Committee additions thought loyal to Olivari. I was told I was added in June 2006 and still haven’t been named to the Committee and thus still can not vote in County matters.

Power affects the people we elect in odd ways. Two examples:

One of the people I met with Tuesday while lobbying the Legislature for smaller class sizes in NYC, was my Assembly Member Brian Kavanaugh. He ran an anti-establishment campaign in the Democratic party primary, has long progressive service at the City Council. I thought he'd be a fire-eater, a dragon slayer. He wasn't he carefully explained that, in his view, this was not the year to make a stand for smaller classes and that the legislature could revisit the issue in years to come. Mind you, a perfectly reasonable position. He saw no urgency in reigning in Mr. Bloomberg and Mr. Klein.

Mr. Kavanaugh's low key response reminded me of a disturbing email I got from my favorite Congress Member: John Hall. There, he explained to me that "I didn't run for Congress to cast a protest vote; I ran to change the course of our country." Further he said he would not vote with the Congressional "Out of Iraq" caucus and would support Speaker Pelosi's somewhat confused (in my, extremist, view) to end the war in Iraq.

I, of course, want the politicians I vote for or campaign on behalf of, to use their office as a soap-box on which they can take courageous stands. Both of these guys have been in office only a few weeks and they are already sounding as timid as Chris Quinn has become. She, at least, has gotten to wield some actual power.