The Obvious Solution: Give Government More Power

This is Gail Collins, writing in the New York Times. It appears on the same page as a Nicholas Kristof editorial arguing for nationalization of the health care system:

New York is currently in crisis because two Democrats in the State Senate defected, giving Republicans control. The remaining Democrats turned out the lights and locked the doors…… Reporters…… had not seen anything this interesting since Gov. Eliot Spitzer was driven out of office in that sex scandal and [Lt. Gov.] Paterson marked his succession by calling a press conference to confess that he had cheated on his wife…..

[However,] unlike Illinois, none of our governors have been indicted for trying to sell a U.S. Senate seat. And unlike Illinois, none of our governors' wives have tried to raise money for her husband's legal defense team by eating a tarantula on a reality TV show……

[Then there is the] night in Baton Rouge when the State House dispatched troopers to drag absent legislators back to their seats, some in bathing suits from their hotel pools and others in various stages of inebriation……

[And the NY saga] is not quite as spectacularly bad as what happened in 2005 in Pennsylvania when that state's dreadful Legislature voted at 2 a.m. to give themselves an enormous pay raise and promptly left for vacation. The constituents actually took note, tossing out 50 of the 253 lawmakers at the next election.

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