That’s the lesson of Gov. Cuomo’s call Monday for a quick-as-a-flash special election for the Brooklyn state Senate seat vacated by Carl Kruger, who recently pleaded to corruption charges and stepped down.
Cuomo set the election date as March 20 — with the major-party candidates picked by party leaders and no opportunity for mavericks to buck the bosses.
That’s because in special elections, party bosses handpick nominees, in lieu of primaries. And contenders for the Senate running as independents get just 12 weekdays to round up 3,000 petition signatures — a high hurdle meant to ensure that the bosses’ picks prevail.
And that challengersdon’t.
Indeed, in this case, the bigwigs appear to havealreadymade their choices: City Councilman Lew Fidler is expected to be the Democratic nominee and to run against Republican lawyer David Storobin.
No others need apply.
Sure, it’s a great system . . .for party honchos. After all, they’re then owed favors by the “elected” pols they install. (On Sunday, The Post — citing several Republicans — reported that Queens wannabes know if they want the GOP nod, they need to pony up cash for the party or its consultants.)
Meanwhile, the lucky lawmakers who get sent to Albany love the system, too.
As for voters — ha!
They barely figure in the equation.
How ironic: Corrupt Kruger’s successor will be chosen in precisely the same manner he was — by party leaders, who tapped him in a special election in 1994.
(The turnout back then was just over 2 percent; he won with a whopping 85 percent of the vote — all 3,044 of them.)
Nothing, it seems, ever changes.
Now the decennial debate over legislative redistricting is well under way — with incumbents paying very close attention to the size, shape and location of their particular rotten boroughs.
Cuomo and the goo-goo groups speak loudly about their desire to stop the gerrymandering that protects incumbents — but, really, what’s the point if the whole system is rigged?
A whole range of issues needs to be addressed along with the redistricting now under way — and ballot access should be near the very top of the list.
What’s the point of tight district lines if the pols are just going to handpick the candidates anyway?
Replacing a crook by crookedness
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