If you're on this site, you already know there is a problem in this state.

In New York, at least, the problem seems to center in the State Legislature, which flourishes in a hothouse of utter voter indifference. If the day ever dawns that one-fifth of the voters are able to identify their state senator, a new world order will arrive.

- Gail Collins, The New York Times

Some day a legislative leadership with a sense of humor will push through both houses resolutions calling for the abolition of their own legislative bodies and the speedy execution of the members. If read in the usual mumbling tone by the clerk and voted on in the usual uninquiring manner, the resolution will be adopted unanimously. 

- Warren Moscow, Politics in the Empire State, (Alfred A. Knopf 1948) 

Others have made extensive diagnoses and prescriptions for this problem. The Brennan Center, years ago that seem like eons, published a report [.pdf] that went a long way towards laying out a roadmap to reform. In poll after poll after poll, New Yorkers have given the legislature astonishingly low marks on every conceivable measure of performance. So it should be clear to any observer that things must change.

Needless to say, the mere idea that it might be time for fundamental change isn't all that interesting to many of our, your, elected representatives. Paychecks are at stake, after all. 

There are many reasons for this: sloth, habit, the ease with which you can, if you're so inclined, take the job of being the peoples' representative in Albany. 

And there are cures for it: at the ballot box. All that needs to be done is to channel the simmering discontent of the people into action. It begins here.