I don't know: what do you think will work? E-mail state senators and tell them we're fed up? Phone them, picket them, fill out newspaper coupons? We might let off a little steam that way. But otherwise, it won't do dip. It hasn't in the past, and it won't now.

Can't we do anything to get state lawmakers to behave themselves?

Late last week, as the Albany antics dragged on, I sought answers from several state-government experts: SUNY New Paltz professor Gerald Benjamin; Blair Horner, legislative director of the New York Public Interest Research Group; and Kent Gardner of Rochester's Center for Governmental Research.

Only half facetiously, I asked if we can't just impeach all of the senators. Well, no (though Benjamin suggested that I see what I could find in state law about nonfeasance, the failure to carry out actions they're supposed to). "Both sides can argue that they are attempting to exercise the responsibilities of their office," said Gardner. "I can't imagine that any attempt to impeach would survive in the courts."

We do have the power of the vote, of course. We can just throw the bums out. But we don't vote for state senators until November 2010. Besides, the Democrats and Republicans have rigged the system to essentially guarantee that we'll keep re-electing incumbents. Politicians draw the election-district lines, and they draw those lines to protect themselves.

At some point, the current stalemate will end. The senators will get too embarrassed, or the heat from home will get too bad, or they'll get tired. Or somebody will bribe somebody to change parties. And then the Senate will get back to work. And thoughts of reform will fade back into the fog.

Horner, Gardner, and Benjamin say that we have to keep at it -and that we have to make all state candidates take a reform pledge.

I'm so fed up that I wouldn't trust anybody's pledge. And Gardner worries that we won't stick with this push for reform. "The challenge is that the public doesn't have a lot of patience for change," he says. "I despair of knowing how to deal with a public with such a short attention span."

Good-government groups are talking again about holding a constitutional convention, where, theoretically, we could fix a lot of our problems. But that's a several-year process. And state legislators would insist that they be in control.

Horner, Gardner, and Benjamin say one problem right now is the lack of a strong governor - somebody who, like Nelson Rockefeller, will knock heads, says Horner.

"You should never underestimate the power of the governor of the State of New York," says Gardner. "The governor is an unusually powerful figure" - more powerful than in many states. He can block legislation, and he has unusual power over the budget.

In the current mess, a strong governor "would have been able to co-opt the Senate," says Gardner. "He could have selectively moved some senators around," luring a Republican or two out of the Senate and into the administration.

"It's hardball politics," says Gardner, "but it can be done." Paterson, unfortunately, "is either unwilling or incapable of doing it," says Gardner.

The governor could end Albany's tradition of conducting the state's business behind closed doors with the leaders of the Senate and the Assembly. The governor could refuse to do that and instead meet with the committee chairs. "He can do that tomorrow," says Gardner.

And, says Gardner, the governor could publicly campaign against the legislature on things like member items.

One hope, then, seems to be electing a tough-as-nails governor in 2010 - Republican or Democrat - who will promise reform and who has the clout and the temperament to bring it about. Someone whose campaign theme will be, oh, I don't know, "Day One, Everything Changes"?

But we know what that led to, don't we?