Home Page > Editorial and Op-Ed
Reform the Special Elections
Mon, 10 Mar 2008 12:11:00
The halls of the Capitol emptied out in the weeks and days leading up to the special election to succeed Sen. James Wright, with Republicans and Democrats alike decamping from Albany to man the battle stations across the North Country.
Now that they are back, they should come together to finally do something significant to reform the special election process.
The call for action is nothing new: about one-third of the legislators were first elected in special elections, many of them bemoaning the process along the way and pledging to change it once they got to Albany.
Occasionally, bills have been introduced. Sometimes, they have been discussed. But they have not actually been passed, remaining bottled in committee as other, purportedly more pressing, pieces of legislation have occupied the minds of leadership and rank-and-file alike.
But with seven special elections last year—this one, and now another one to come for Darrel Aubertine’s Assembly seat—the number of seats involved should keep anyone from dismissing or delaying reform any longer. The question of how people get elected is, of course, the foundation of democracy: the process of putting people in office determines the kinds of bills introduced and passed. Though the Legislature should probably be canceling the summer recess to act on everything from property tax reform to a re-examination of the Rockefeller drug laws, special election reform should be at the top of the to-do list.
What reform might entail is debatable. Clearly, there need to be primaries and lowered signature requirements to make these odd, and oddly timed, elections accessible to potential candidates from outside the local political machinery. At the same time, the requirements for governors calling special elections must be tightened to protect against the kind of political gamesmanship that has in the past been suspected on the second floor.
And using special elections as test cases for publicly financed races would not be a bad idea either.
Some of this is included in the bill Assembly Member Linda Rosenthal introduced following her own Feb. 2006 special election. (The bill was re-introduced in amended form last year.) There are potentially other good ideas around as well, such as Citizens Union’s idea to make special elections open and non-partisan. The time has come to consider these in a real way.
There really is no question of who should lead the discussion: a special election reform bill should be the first one Aubertine introduces in the Senate, with Will Barclay introducing the companion bill in the Assembly. The more than 70 special election veterans in the chamber could and should make up a strong coalition for change, if they are ready to turn their backs on the process which served their own purposes so well.
Special elections have usually proven effective for the parties of departing incumbents to make stronger plays in retaining seats. They are all about self-preservation and political advantage. As Republicans fight to stay in power and Democrats fight to take it from them, special election reform is precisely the way to show that acting on behalf of the greater good of New Yorkers is more important than self-interest in power.
Now that they are back, they should come together to finally do something significant to reform the special election process.
The call for action is nothing new: about one-third of the legislators were first elected in special elections, many of them bemoaning the process along the way and pledging to change it once they got to Albany.
Occasionally, bills have been introduced. Sometimes, they have been discussed. But they have not actually been passed, remaining bottled in committee as other, purportedly more pressing, pieces of legislation have occupied the minds of leadership and rank-and-file alike.
But with seven special elections last year—this one, and now another one to come for Darrel Aubertine’s Assembly seat—the number of seats involved should keep anyone from dismissing or delaying reform any longer. The question of how people get elected is, of course, the foundation of democracy: the process of putting people in office determines the kinds of bills introduced and passed. Though the Legislature should probably be canceling the summer recess to act on everything from property tax reform to a re-examination of the Rockefeller drug laws, special election reform should be at the top of the to-do list.
What reform might entail is debatable. Clearly, there need to be primaries and lowered signature requirements to make these odd, and oddly timed, elections accessible to potential candidates from outside the local political machinery. At the same time, the requirements for governors calling special elections must be tightened to protect against the kind of political gamesmanship that has in the past been suspected on the second floor.
And using special elections as test cases for publicly financed races would not be a bad idea either.
Some of this is included in the bill Assembly Member Linda Rosenthal introduced following her own Feb. 2006 special election. (The bill was re-introduced in amended form last year.) There are potentially other good ideas around as well, such as Citizens Union’s idea to make special elections open and non-partisan. The time has come to consider these in a real way.
There really is no question of who should lead the discussion: a special election reform bill should be the first one Aubertine introduces in the Senate, with Will Barclay introducing the companion bill in the Assembly. The more than 70 special election veterans in the chamber could and should make up a strong coalition for change, if they are ready to turn their backs on the process which served their own purposes so well.
Special elections have usually proven effective for the parties of departing incumbents to make stronger plays in retaining seats. They are all about self-preservation and political advantage. As Republicans fight to stay in power and Democrats fight to take it from them, special election reform is precisely the way to show that acting on behalf of the greater good of New Yorkers is more important than self-interest in power.
