As we enthusiastically anticipated, the Brennan Center has issued a brand new report on the New York state legislature. And, again, there's an awful lot wrong with the Brennan Center's brand new report on the New York state legislature. But--at the beginning at least--we'll confine our questions/criticism to that which is most banally and painfully obvious. 

Think of it as a topical taxonomy of stupid Brennan Center questions.

Here goes:

Reformer no see, reformer no hear, reformer no mention

There is/was a governor working in Illinois to sell a US senate seat. He failed. Now, he's sticking his guy in there, all lathered up in subpoenas, petty vengeance, grand juries, reverse-partisanship, convoluted self-dealing and racial booby-trapping--all bleeding out onto the national scene. Now, the legislature in Illinois had ample opportunity to take the appointment process into its own hands, but got all tied up with subpoenas, petty vengeance, grand juries, reverse-partisanship, convoluted self-dealing and racial booby-trapping--all bleeding out onto the national scene.  And since you guys--the Brennan Center--are so fond of newspaper headlines, we note that the Chicago Tribune calls it A show that Springer couldn't even conceive. (Nice touch, huh?)

Our stupid question is this: Did the Brennan Center "quantitatively analyze" Illinois?  And if so, where does Illinois rank on the current dysfunction list?  We tried to find some quantitative methodology in the quantitative methodology section of your report, but we couldn't; nor could we find an ordinal table where an ordinal table section of the report should exist, but doesn't.

Reformer no see, reformer no hear, reformer no mention.  Again

Speaking of summaries of legislative dysfunction, the state of California is going to run out of cash (as in real cash money) next month, the state treasurer just took ill with chest pains, and no legislative deal appears remotely close. Our next stupid question is this: Can you describe a similarly seminal lack of functional action by the New York State legislature in the recent past?  Go all the way back to the city and state's financial crisis of the '70s if you want. (And no, congestion pricing and de-structured resource allocation doesn't cut it.) 

Reformer no see, reformer no hear, reformer no mention. Once more

The USA Today just did an analysis on most-corrupt states, our next stupid question is how come North Dakota led the pack?  And New York's not even close. We thought we'd ask this because we don't possess a quantitative analysis supercomputer to run all these complex numbers and figure this stuff out.

If a cheeseburger is like a phone booth, it's not because a phone booth is like a cheeseburger

The Brennan Center writes:

The legislative leadership largely dismissed the findings of the 2004 report. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver told the New York Times, "Nothing happens here in Albany, in the Assembly, without the input of the rank-and-file legislators." Joe Bruno, who recently left the Senate after serving for 14 years as its Majority Leader, called the report "pure nonsense" and equated a more democratic process with that of a Third World country.

Shelly Silver states what a blind, toothless --but honest--watchdog could discern in one conference caucus. And a near-felon says, "Go eff yourself, Brennan Center." The epistemological sequence here is not exactly leaping off the page at me. But setting this aside for the moment, we'd just like help with this stupid semantic stumper: How exactly did you arrive at "I get input" = "You're nonsense?"

Just askin'. 

You can't always get what you want, but if whine sometimes, you probably won't--especially if it's something nobody else wants

The Brennan Center writes:

While the world of legislative rules may seem arcane, our capitol's dysfunction has received unprecedented attention over the period covered in this report thanks in part to the failure of New York City's congestion pricing proposal.

Now, if say, NGD wants discounts for all muzzle-loaded hunting licenses issued in the Southern Tier, does that mean, ipso facto, that failure to do so constitutes "endemic" legislative dysfunction?  Or in terms of "unprecedented capitol attention," what of the non-failure of gay marriage in the Assembly? Or the failure of gay marriage in the Senate?  Or is this another case of: "I get input" = "You're nonsense."  Does it even enter the mondo Brennan Center quantitative calculus that no one apart from twittering elites like the Brennan Center wanted anything to do with congestion pricing?

Down the rabbit hole with Alice, Malcolm and Pedro

The Brennan Center cheerily opines:

The good news is that, for the first time in years, there is reason to hope that at least one chamber will begin to make the structural changes that could remake the legislature. Come January, majority control of the Senate may shift to the Democrats. In 2007, likely incoming Senate President Pro Tempore Malcolm Smith introduced new rules in line with our previous recommendations (the one-house resolution failed along a party-line vote). During a Reform Day New York panel last year, Senator Smith reaffirmed his commitment to introducing the same package of rules reform "without question" if the Democrats regained the majority.

Just one question. OK, maybe a couple. Were you, the Brennan Center for Justice, sensuously impaired when you cooked up that paragraph? And better still, Pedro Espada, Carl Kruger and Ruben Diaz say they too want reforms; in fact, they want to reform presumptive-Senate President Pro Tempore Smith's reforms. Big Time. The stupid question is, do they--Kruger, Espada, Diaz--also inspire good news and hope in the Brennan Center for Justice?  And could they possibly be included in your next executive summary on legislative dysfunction? But in a good kind of way.

Enough, at least for today. Bottom line: This report is predictably devoid of "quantitative" substantiation, intellectual due diligence and any type of normative context whatsoever.  Apart from that, it's a great job.

Nonetheless, the Brennan Center premise is valid enough: Can the state legislature improve the way it does things? Absolutely. However, that endeavor warrants serious discussion from serious participants.  But this report is not serious. It's another cheap sugar-high for the Brennan Center and its equally lazy MSM "co-reformers" at places like the Daily News.

The world is a big and beautiful place.  These people need to see more of it. See how it works. Or how it doesn't.