On April 12 the Dyson Foundation/Marist Poll released the first statewide survey of NYS residents’ opinions on local government consolidation (see www.nylocalgov.org). While restructuring is central to Governor Cuomo’s strategy to cut the tax burden, the results suggest that change will be slow without further state action.

• Support for restructuring is hardly universal, despite the bewildering complexity of NYS local government.

• Support varies by function: Highway services are more readily shared than public safety or education—why?

• Experience shows that the status quo is hard to dislodge, even where support is strong. How might state action spur cost-effective re-invention?

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I’ve had “one person, one vote” (OK, “one MAN, one vote”) drummed into my head since the 4^th grade. Yet this didn’t apply to many legislative elections until the mid 1960s. Congressional seats, while allocated to states according to population, were distributed within the states many different ways. Only in a series of decisions handed down between 1962 and 1964 did the Supreme Court declare that Congressional and state legislative districts had to contain roughly the same number of residents, basing its decision on the “Equal Protection Clause” of the Constitution’s 14^th Amendment.
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