On the eve of the nation’s 233rd birthday, understanding what the founders may have thought at the time, with an unresponsive king of England and distant parliament, may be all the easier after watching the circus in Albany over the last month. Like our Founding Fathers, looking at Albany’s antics has come with some humor, but mostly comments of disgust. At this point taxpayers and voters may be fed up enough to want change.

Since they usually do not do it through the ballot box (re-electing most of the parts that create the whole of the state Legislature) they must seek another avenue — that change may be best achieved by doing what Albany’s power brokers and barons like least — a constitutional convention.

New York is long overdue for an overhaul of its legislative and governmental systems — systems that need voters to have the power of initiative, referendum and re-call, that puts term limits on those in power, so that Albany can be infused with new blood and hopefully new ideas, on an ongoing basis. These are things that reformers (and this column) have been touting for decades, but without success. It may be that the failure of Albany so vividly displayed over the last month by lockouts, walkouts, a Blackberry insult, cup of coffee and the low point of dueling Pledge of Allegiances, that may finally get voters attention to say “enough is enough.”

The last time voters in New York had an opportunity to call a Constitutional Convention was in 1997, when they went to the polls and defeated the idea. At the time, reformers wanted to have a convention that would not allow anyone who was then a member of the Senate or Assembly (or for that matter, their attorneys) become delegates. Albany’s power structure — elected officials and special interests — opposed it with all of its might (the rare local exception was Sen. John DeFrancisco, who testified in Syracuse at the time that a convention was needed) and the referendum went down in flames that November.

In the intervening dozen years, the gridlock and unproductiveness of Albany has only become worse — it has become a lethargic sloth that does little, except tax and spend with little regard for anything other than maintaining the status quo and making sure that those in power keep their power. Just maybe, the antics of the last month are enough to get New Yorkers to reform the representative democracy that has failed us in the Empire State.

Happy Birthday to the United States and to New Yorkers — it is time for the political revolution to begin with a Constitutional Convention, one without Albany’s elected being involved.

Cosentino is a former mayor of Auburn and can be contacted at cozguytho@aol.com