Brooklyn Heights resident and NYS Assembly candidate Doug Biviano has written an Op-Ed piece for the Brooklyn Paper:

Brooklyn Paper: Coupled with the state’s arcane election law, it is virtually impossible for challengers to win. Legally complicated by design, election law is used by the incumbents to throw hundreds of challengers off the ballot, resulting in 98 percent being re-elected no matter how bad of a job they are doing, no matter how badly they hurt us and the state.

Assemblywoman Millman is directly responsible for this crisis in democracy because she chairs the Assembly’s Election Law Committee, the sole chairperson who has the power to affect real reform, yet she has done nothing of substance and has not been held one bit accountable, not even for her $12,500 lulu. But has the broken election law that Millman protects knocked off challengers with the skills to fix this state? Yes.

NYS Senator Daniel Squadron writes a counter-point to Biviano:

Brooklyn Paper: So, how can we fix it? Can it even be fixed?

After 18 months in the Senate, I know that it can.

The truth is, despite ongoing frustration — on the budget, campaign finance reform, housing, buses and subways, and other issues — I do believe the senate has already achieved some important victories. We passed comprehensive ethics reform out of the legislature, including my bill to close the “Bruno Gap,” making it illegal for public officers to use government resources for outside, for-profit business.

We implemented rules reform to improve the legislative process, including a more equitable allocation of resources and a greater ability for rank-and-file members to get bills voted on in committees and before the entire house. And these procedural changes have been matched by some significant policy successes, including reform of the Rockefeller Drug Laws, new oversight of public authorities, a green jobs program, and the bill I sponsored to federalize 21 public-housing developments and bring in hundreds of millions of dollars in federal aid.