We've been promised a New Era of Collaboration. But this just feels like a new version of the Good Cop, Bad Cop era, with Maggie Brooks still the Good Cop and the County Legislature replacing Steve Minarik as the face of the Bad Cop.

How else can we explain the recent actions of the Legislature's Republican leaders?

I suppose you could say that they're clueless - that they actually believe they're doing the right thing. I don't know which is worse, frankly.

Ignoring the flack that their party created over the MCC presidency, last week the Republicans rammed through the appointment of a new MCC board member.

Apparently that appointee, John Bartolotta - a banker who served on the MCC Foundation board for 15 years - is a good choice. But true to form, the Republicans released his name 24 hours before the meeting at which the legislature was to vote, refusing to give legislature Democrats a chance to interview him, refusing to provide information about possible other candidates.

Their justification: MCC and the community "should not have to endure the public grilling of Bartolotta."

That was Republican Majority Leader Dan Quatro's explanation in his July 11 opinion piece in the Democrat and Chronicle.

Legislature Republicans followed procedure with Bartolotta, wrote Quatro; Legislature President Wayne Zyra "reviewed his qualifications, recommended him to the legislature, and we appointed him."

It was Democrats who politicized the process - Democrats, not Republicans, who refused to collaborate, wrote Quatro (whose definition of "collaboration" is apparently "blind obedience").

So any questioning of any nominee - to the MCC board, to the Water Authority, to the office of public defender, to any of the positions on which the legislature votes - is forbidden. Any vetting by anyone other than the legislature president is "public grilling."

In ramming through Bartolotta's appointment, the Republicans raised suspicions they should have gone out of their way to avoid: that they are still intent on having the next MCC president serve the Republican Party, not the college.

And sadly, as they did with the public-defender appointment, Republican legislators tarnished a person who may very well be an excellent choice.

The Republicans were in a hurry to get someone appointed to a vacant seat on the MCC board. That's in the public interest, frankly: the college has been through far too much, thanks to the Republicans' shenanigans. MCC needs a full, informed board of trustees, and the sooner new appointments are made, the sooner the board can be effective.

But if the legislature truly couldn't delay the appointment until August, the president could have called a special meeting. At the least, Republicans could have quickly filled Democrats in on any other candidates for the position and insured that Democrats had a chance to interview all of them.

It would have taken so little for the Republicans to include the Democrats in this process. So why do the Republicans insist on behaving like this? Why go out of their way to be obnoxious?

Bartolotta replaces Lori Van Dusen, who led the fight against the appointment of former County Legislator Bill Smith to the MCC presidency. The Smith supporters now have the five votes they need, to appoint Smith or anyone else they want.

So either the legislature Republicans were up to no good with the Bartolotta appointment, or they behaved this way simply because they could. (It's our legislature, our college, and our board of trustees, and we'll do whatever we want.)

The Republican leaders treat their Democratic colleagues as nuisances. But those Democrats represent tens of thousands of Monroe County residents. Those residents' opinions and representation are important.

The Republicans knew they had the votes for Bartolotta, so his appointment was not in question. What was in question was civility. And collaboration. And democracy.