After three weeks of dueling press conferences and contradictory statements from members of the state Senate about how their chamber fell into chaos, we hope people will contact their local representatives to let them know how the entire Senate's behavior is being seen back home.

The whole mess could have been avoided in the first place, and it's important to remember what it's really all about: power and money.

The party in control gets to decide which bills get voted on and which don't. The ruling party also gets to appoint committee chairmanships that come with big cash bonuses.

So, in a quest to obtain more power and money, Republicans held weeks of top-secret meetings to get the votes they needed before calling on June 8 for a vote to establish new leadership in the Senate.

The Democrats, wanting to retain control of the power and money, walked out.

The result is that we now have 62 elected officials who haven't done a lick of work in three weeks, though they continue to cash their fat paychecks.

Voters have a tendency to give their representatives a pass and overwhelmingly re-elect incumbents year after year. The politicians know this, of course, and because state senators won't be up for re-election again until 2010, they know that voters will have plenty of time to forget about their battle over power and money that brought their chamber to a standstill.

We suggest, therefore, that before our collective outrage and disgust over this incident has a chance to fade, that voters call and write their representatives. You have the right to demand better government.

Here is the contact information for the two senators representing Cayuga County:

Write Sen. Michael Nozzolio at 119 Fall St., Seneca Falls, NY 13148 or call (888) 568-9816 or e-mail nozzolio@senate.state.ny.us. Write Sen. David Valesky at State Office Building, Suite 805, Syracuse, NY 13202 or call 478-8745 or e-mail valesky@senate.state.ny.us.