The ads have been running on cable stations for weeks now: Patriotic footage. American flags. An earnest-sounding announcer calling for a common sense citizen’s revolt to impose fiscal responsibility on Albany under the name of “Budget Reform Now!”

It sounds like a good and virtuous idea backed by citizen’s groups. But it is a cynical power grab by the state legislature funded exclusively by union and corporate cronies to pay off political debts.

Proposition 1 wants to look like a reform when in fact it is a massive step back. It would allow the leaders of what NYU’s Brennan Center famously called “the most dysfunctional state legislature in the nation” – Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno – essentially to wait out the governor in budget negotiations, then re-impose their own pork barrel laden legislative budget on the state. It would reduce the already absurd “three men in a room” Albany routine to a two men in a room taxpayer subsidized smorgasbord.

Most New Yorkers are used to politicians dressing up lousy ideas with pretty words. But even the more jaded among us might get their blood up when they look at who is subsidizing the intentionally misleading advertising blitz with two half million dollar gifts: Cablevision and The Service Employees International Union 1199.

The whole arrangement reeks of quid pro quo. After all, it was Sheldon Silver and the state legislature who effectively killed the West Side Stadium at the 11th hour after Cablevision spent $34 million in misleading ads earlier this year to retain its monopoly on sports stadiums in Manhattan. Cablevision’s chief lobbyist is Sheldon Silver’s close former chief of staff Patricia Lynch. Now it’s payback time, baby. Cablevision has written a half million dollar check to ensure that the state legislature can write its own check in the indefinite future.

1199 has no less a weaselly reputation in state and local politics. They have been known to sell their endorsement to the highest bidder in exchange for taxpayer gifts. In 2002, Governor Pataki wanted to increase his Latino support in the state to open up future opportunities to run for the presidency. He enlisted Dennis Rivera, the charismatic president of 1199, sold the state down the river and received an unnecessary endorsement on his way to a post-September 11th landslide victory. This year Mr. Rivera attempted a similar sham show of bipartisanship by soliciting Mayor Michael Bloomberg for endorsement. In one of the few truly courageous chapters of this campaign, Bloomberg refused to play 1199’s game. The result? 1199 took its 20,000 members and promptly endorsed Fernando Ferrer. But the union’s desire for job security at all costs – paid for, of course, by taxpayers – remains undimmed: this fake reform would ensure that their coffers will be overflowing well into the future.

You will not see Cablevision or 1199’s name anywhere on these ads. Instead, you see the name of respected civic groups such as NYPIRG, Common Cause, and the New York Women League of Voters. They have endorsed Proposition 1 but they are not part of the backroom “Budget Reform Now!” cash clique. The question these good government groups must confront is why they have allowed their names to be used as props for a fundamentally unethical special-interest money buy.

Thankfully, many leading New Yorkers, civic organizations such as Citizens Union (on whose board of directors I serve) and most newspaper editorial boards have seen through this pseudoreform effort. Perhaps most significantly, a bipartisan list of governors and gubernatorial hopefuls have argued aggressively against Proposition 1,including Governor Carey, Governor Cuomo, Governor Pataki, and future governor hopefuls such as Attorney General Spitzer, John Faso and William Weld.

It’s no wonder – with this imbalance of power imposed on the executive, past solutions to fiscal crises would be essentially impossible, a dangerous prospect for future governors wrestling with budget deficits.

There are plenty of useful items available to New Yorkers on the ballot this year. In particular, the charter revisions put forward by the Bloomberg administration offer a thoughtful and positive attempt to preserve fiscal responsibility requirements and increase the integrity of local judges – two issues of perpetual importance that have taken on increased urgency in recent months.

But the hottest places in hell are for those people who try to manipulate the idealism of others for their own selfish ends. Budget Reform Now! makes a mockery of the word “reform.” By rejecting Proposition 1 with resounding “No” vote this Tuesday, New Yorkers can send a message that we can see through bells and whistles put on corrupt back-room deals. New York desperately needs real budget reform, but this is a million dollar profile in cynicism.