For years, the Democratic members of the State Senate have been complaining about the Republican majority, and the state’s downward trajectory that they argue has been the result.

No doubt, few could say what exactly the senators in the Republican conference stood for or did in recent years, yet just about everyone knew that they had bigger offices and lulus, power to redraw their own districts and to keep Democratic senators’ names from being on passed legislation. Meanwhile, the state budget got more bloated, the economic crisis loomed larger and the population of the state shrunk. Industrial towns across whole regions of the state grew emptier while classrooms in the city grew ever more crowded and dangerous.

The Republicans had made an art out of sacrificing governing and accomplishment for the sake of holding onto political power. And while Democrats insisted they would do differently, the cynics suspected otherwise.

But who would have guessed that they would have been proven right so soon?

The start of the legislative session is still weeks away, so judging their approach to governing may be somewhat premature. But if Malcolm Smith and his fellow new members of the majority were trying to instill confidence in their competence from how they have so far approached  the Gang of Three holdout, they failed, and quite soundly.

This should have been the time when Smith and his purportedly strong and prepared members were charting the course for the months ahead, finally unveiling the supposed plans they kept so bizarrely under wraps during the election cycle. They should have been setting goals, announcing plans to get those goals accomplished and reassuring New Yorkers that they were fit to lead at this dire and potentially pivotal moment for the state. Instead, we know that at least one key element of its promised agenda is ready to be sacrificed for the sake of getting power, and that reform can be defined as giving out new titles and changing the seating order.

That is not bold legislative leadership. That is summer camp.

Of course, in order to get to their agenda, the Democrats need first to get the majority, and that meant satiating the three senators who for the sake of a power play rather than deep ideological reasons decided to hold out support for the party in which they are registered and which had supported them. That is simple politics, and no one involved was ever naïve enough to believe that the State Senate was somehow above these kinds of negotiations.

The problem is that this is only simple politics at its most simplistic level. There is very little policy involved. There is no substance. On the contrary, what has become clear is that the Democrats seem ready to subsume everything to politicking for the sake of having and holding power.

Instead of spending the weeks ahead just making announcements of positions and committee chairs, then restating these announcements as deals are struck and re-struck, the conference needs to actually start announcing policy. Prospective new committee chair should step forward with an in-depth agenda, detailing bills that might be introduced and helping point the state in a new direction. They need to show themselves capable of doing more than just playing games—or, in the words of one Democratic senator dissatisfied with how things are shaping up, demonstrate that they all actually believe “sometimes personal power isn’t as important as what we promised the voters of New York.”

At the moment, that senator is, apparently, of the minority opinion. After years of Senate Democrats blaming the ineffectiveness of Albany on the partisan divide, of arguing that they were better fit to lead, that is a very sad statement. By Jan. 7, and hopefully long before, they need to start convincing people that they are saying something else.