Answer… Yes. We are already at a disadvantage in WNY and Upstate with the majority of representation in Albany coming from NYCity. The assembly has a veto proof majority and virtually anything they want to happen, happens.
If the Dems take over the Senate we will have lost the system of checks and balances that is necessary to maintain any form of the “Representative” form of government we are supposed to have. Granted the Republicans in the senate have swayed way left and have good reason to worry about losing the house.
My suggestion is, if you are a Republican, act like one. If you get elected for your platform as a Republican, smaller government, tax cuts, reform, etc… stick to the issues you got elected for. Problaem is, they haven’t and Republicans are staying home on election day.
recordonline.com - Will adding Dems hurt upstate?
Albany — With New York City Democrats apparently poised to take over all statewide offices and maintain their stranglehold on the Assembly, some fear the Republican-controlled state Senate could soon be upstate New York’s last line of political defense in Albany.
After all, most of the Senate’s members come from areas north of Rockland and Westchester counties. “We make sure upstate isn’t the sacrificial lamb for New York City,” said Sen. Bill Larkin, R-Cornwall-on-Hudson.
But the most significant political shift in a dozen years is close to taking place in Albany.
Gov. George Pataki, a Hudson Valley and North Country resident, is packing up at the end of the year. Polls show Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, a Manhattan Democrat, poised to easily win that seat. And if Democrats take over the Senate, as some believe is likely within the next few years, the changes could be striking.
“Generally speaking, in politics, to the victors go the spoils,” said Blair Horner of the New York Public Interest Research Group.
Under that scenario, he said, areas represented by Senate and Assembly Republicans likely would suffer from a lack of clout in Albany.
Majority parties in each house, for example, control an extraordinary amount of discretionary cash and share only a small part of it with the other side of the aisle.
In recent years, any rift has been overcome by the balance of power in Albany. Both houses of the Legislature battle long hours each session to ultimately split funds in an arguably fair way between upstate and down.
“The Senate’s job is to protect Republicans and to make sure upstate doesn’t get trampled,” said Maurice “Mickey” Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute and former political writer for The New York Times.
While Democrats outnumber Republicans by a 5-to-1 ratio in New York City, Republicans maintain an edge in rural upstate.
Upstate Democrats tend to lean more conservative than their New York City counterparts. And there is also a historical rivalry between upstate and the city.
3 users commented in " Will adding Dems hurt upstate? "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackYou write “If the Dems take over the Senate we will have lost the system of checks and balances that is necessary to maintain any form of the “Representative†form of government we are supposed to have. ”
So extending your logic, we have no “Representative” form of government at the federal level, since Republicans control all three branches (and look at the state of our country and our role in the world… yep. Point made.)
Adding more Dems will force Democrats to be accountable- at least in theory (that theory doesn’t seem to be working to hold Republicans in Washington to account).
Republicans control the Senate and the Executive branch– and they’ve had 10 years with control of two of the three branches of state government… and what’s happened? Jack squat has improved for upstate.
I blame Shelly Silve and Joe Bruno for perpetuating a system which benefits them, and hurts everybody else. Which is why I harp on the need for publicly financed elections to give good candidates– not tied to special interests– a chance to win, and term limits, to force some new blood through the ranks. Incumbency and the stagnation of ideas is a disease that’s leaving our government in the gutter.
Would more Democrats help or hurt upstate? Who knows; it depends on who they are. If Eliot Spitzer follows through on his good-government reform ideas, we’ll see a positive change.
I know I won’t be voting for more of the same blame-the-Democrats and do-nothing-better Republicans like we have sitting in Albany now.
Sorry Dan, I don’t buy the publicly financed elections idea as a panacea for fair elections.
First, the incumbent crooks in power will never go for it unless they can still maintain an advantage over reform challengers. Second, I don’t want one penny of my money going to help somebody that I wouldn’t vote for.
We are already being forced to pay the special interests, so they can in turn donate to our enemies.
The real problem is the ignorance and apathy of the electorate and the gerrymandering that keeps the worse people in perpetual public disservice.
That panacea is a reality in New York City for citywide elections, and so are term limits.
While I agree that ignorance and apathy or the electorate is a huge problem– and it scares the hell out of me considering our changing and increasingly less-competitive economy– I think publicly financed elections would be a better start. Plus, everybody would be paying for those people they won’t vote for, but they’re leveling the playing field by doing so.
Gerrymandering is yet another issue most of us can agree is problematic– both parties do it whenever they can, to the detrement of our republic. However, with lifetime tenure for those who draw those arbitrary boundaries, there’s not much incentive to change (and the ignorant electorate cry out… “gerry who?”)
Oy.
Leave A Reply