New York’s broken state government desperately needs fixing. So Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, a Democrat of Westchester, has sparked a worthwhile debate by proposing a series of amendments to the state constitution. “The state constitution is the place where New Yorkers should seek permanent, thoughtful change that will reinvigorate our governing institutions,” Mr.Brodsky said Friday. “The crisis of governance and public confidence, seen most obviously in the failure of government to produce on-time budgets, has shown that the time for half-measures and temporary fixes is over.”

Mr. Brodsky’s initiative looks to us like a defensive maneuver to protect the perquisites of the same discredited Legislature that has been operating in Albany for years. His plan resorts to half-measures and appears like it would give the Assembly and Senate the power to veto the people. Instead of the powers of initiative and referendum granted to citizens in other states, under the Brodsky plan the assemblyman would amend the state constitution to include a provision for “direct petition and response.” New Yorkers, if they can gather enough signatures, would be able to submit a petition to Albany. The Legislature would be required to accept or reject the voters’ proposal within 40 days.

“The reason for this recommendation, and not direct initiative and referendum,” Mr. Brodsky explains in a legislative memorandum, “is because most initiative and referendum movements are ruled by large moneyed interests. Initiative and referendum movements controlled by large moneyed interests are not reflective of the general will.”

Aside from the fact that the rich have the same rights as anyone else to express their interests, the Brodsky bogeyman of “large moneyed interests” is illusory, an excuse for refusing to make New York’s Legislature more accountable to New Yorkers.” Many people are predisposed to believe that money influences elections. But when it comes to initiative campaigns, the proof does not exist,” M. Dane Waters, president of the Initiative and Referendum Institute at the University of Southern California, told a Cato Institute forum on initiative campaigns.

“It turns out that the large, monied interests are often on the other side of the equation, according to Mr. Waters: “Money can’t buy a yes vote no matter how hard you try, but money is very, very instrumental in defeating a measure. The reason school vouchers and other controversial issues were defeated is because teachers’ groups and others came along to muddy the waters, to raise in some cases outrageous objections. On the no side, if you can spend enough money to raise doubts and uncertainties in voters’ minds, they will vote no.” In 2000,two high-profile, privately funded school-choice initiatives in Michigan and California were both defeated by big-money coalitions of teachers unions and government officials. Is it the teachers unions, according to Mr. Brodsky, who represent “the general will”?

Mr. Brodsky bases his proposal on the National Conference of State Legislatures Initiative and Referendum Task Force, which concluded that a “direct petition and response” system was favorable to initiative and referendum. When the task force released its report in 2002, the NCSL explained, “The task force says the initiative lacks critical elements of the lawmaking process where proponents and opponents have an opportunity to work together to craft and develop policies and priorities in a comprehensive and balanced manner.”

When applied to the New York Legislature, this argument is almost laughable. A recent report by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University found that between 1997 and 2001, the Assembly and Senate each enacted 95% of their major bills without any debate. The speaker of the Assembly and the majority leader of the Senate exert such control over Albany’s legislative process that only those bills the two men want passed even make it to a vote. Between 1997 and 2001, every bill considered by either house was adopted. If proponents and opponents are working in a “comprehensive and balanced manner” in Albany, they’re doing it in some smoke-filled back room somewhere.

In contrast, the initiative process takes place in the light of day. The contemporary use of ballot initiatives began in 1978 when Californians passed Proposition 13, cutting property taxes to 1% of market value from about 2.5%. Within two years, 43 states had adopted property tax limitations or relief, and 15 states had reduced their income tax rates. The vice president for communications at the National Taxpayers Union, Peter J. Sepp, reckons that the “Tax Revolt” of the 1970s could not have happened without the initiative process. “Arguably,” Mr. Sepp has written, “the Initiative and Referendum has contributed more to fiscal restraint than any other procedural device or substantive action.”

That sounds like just what New York needs. Initiative and referendum would give New Yorkers a voice in a legislative process that is often gridlocked by competing special interests and held hostage by a small political oligarchy. Governor Pataki has been calling for a constitutional amendment to give New Yorkers the right of initiative and referendum since his first State of the State Address in 1995. If only the large moneyed interests in Albany were interested in following the general will.