I agree that all this has to be done but don’t you think he should set the example. The trip to California was far from leading the pack.

I would not expect these legislators to do anything that may hurt their chances to continue their plush lifestyle. We need genuine reform minded people that are unbiased to do the redistricting, not this group.

Spitzer wants legislators to dismantle their own foundations

ALBANY, N.Y. — Gov. Eliot Spitzer, trying to change everything from campaign fundraising to the way New York’s election lines are drawn, wants the leaders of the Legislature to voluntarily dismantle the very system they and their predecessors carefully crafted to protect their power.

Not surprisingly, the potential victims are not willingly following the new Democratic governor to what they fear could be a political slaughterhouse.

In recent weeks, Spitzer has asked lawmakers to sharply cut the amount of money that can be raised from special interests and individual donors; ease the rules for candidate access to New York’s election ballot; keep polls open longer in some parts of the state for primaries; and allow voters to register on the day of an election.

In perhaps the most sweeping proposal, Spitzer wants to strip the Legislature of the power to draw election district lines for itself and for congressional districts. That is the process by which the legislative majorities _ Republicans in the state Senate and Democrats in the Assembly _ create new district lines in the wake of each national census to reflect population shifts. The goal of the majorities currently is to give themselves the best chance at taking the most districts. In a clear example of bipartisan political self-interest, the Senate Republicans go along with the Democrats’ plan for the Assembly and vice versa. Spitzer would have an independent commission draw the lines.

The target of Spitzer’s moves is what critics call the “incumbency protection plan” that has led to a re-election rate in New York of more than 95 percent.

It is little wonder that legislative leaders have pushed back, especially state Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno.

Bruno is a little closer to the political abyss than Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, a Democrat. There are just 33 Republicans in the 62-member Senate, five fewer than in 2004, while Silver’s party controls 107 of the Assembly’s 150 seats.

Political demographics also work against Bruno. Of the state’s 10.3 million registered voters in April 1997, 29.5 percent were Republicans. A decade later, the GOP has fewer than 27 percent of the state’s 11.2 million registered voters.

Spitzer has repeatedly made it clear that he is bent on eliminating the GOP Senate majority that has controlled that chamber every year since February 1939 except for a brief hiatus in 1965.

Bruno has taken two tacks in his offensive against Spitzer. The Republican has criticized the millionaire governor as a rich guy who wants to hamstring candidates of average means by making it harder to raise campaign cash. Second, Bruno said Spitzer has refused to step back from campaign mode and concentrate on governing, which to Bruno means compromising with legislative leaders on issues.

Bruno, who has run the Senate since late 1994, is playing off an increasingly popular perception in New York political circles that Spitzer is a bit too much of a hard-charger _ a former state attorney general used to beating his opponents into submission or hauling them into court.

That is coupled with the notion that, as a rookie governor, Spitzer may be making rookie mistakes. Unlike Republican George Pataki, who focused intently in his first year on cutting taxes and restoring the death penalty in New York _ he did both _ Spitzer has laid out an ambitious agenda that includes everything from greater state aid to private and parochial schools to legalization of gay marriage.

Perhaps overly ambitious, wrote New York Daily News columnist Bill Hammond.

“Spitzer’s headlong rush to change everything by yesterday has succeeded mostly in alienating the Legislature and confusing the public,” Hammond wrote.

“Spitzer has shown all the focus of a hummingbird hopped up on Starbucks,” he added.

While the Spitzer camp has spread the word that it’s trying to negotiate with legislative leaders in good faith despite the very public bickering going among the principals, the governor may find unraveling the incumbency protection system his most daunting task.

“To get significant changes in those areas would be very unlikely because it would be a significant disruption of the system they’ve created,” said E.J. McMahon, a senior analyst with a research arm of the conservative Manhattan Institute.

McMahon, a former political reporter who has also worked in the executive and legislative branches of New York’s government, said Spitzer does have one significant advantage.

“He certainly arrived at the one tried and true method of getting them to do anything they’re reluctant to do, which is to tie it to a pay raise,” McMahon said. Lawmakers haven’t had a pay hike since 1999.

Thus far, the legislative leaders have been unable to craft a pay raise agreement that could withstand a threatened Spitzer veto. A two-thirds vote would be needed in each chamber to accomplish that.

But even with that leverage, McMahon predicted Spitzer would likely get, at best, only a small victory.

“Change on his terms, if his terms really represent change, is unlikely,” he said.