With a third consecutive House speaker under indictment and a membership that seems more committed to preserving “hack holidays” than enacting reform, the Massachusetts Legislature isn’t held in very high esteem these days — though part of its problem may be that its members have so much self-esteem they don’t grasp the concept of accountability to the electorate. But the shenanigans in New York’s state Senate, as reported in the New York Times, offer two lessons to us in Massachusetts.

First, we don’t necessarily have the most embarrassing Legislature in the nation:

Two dissident Democrats, who had been secretly strategizing with Republicans for weeks, bucked their party’s leaders and joined with 30 Republican senators to form what they said would be a bipartisan power-sharing deal…. Democratic leaders were caught off guard as the Republicans and the two Democratic dissidents, Pedro Espada Jr. of the Bronx and Hiram Monserrate of Queens, moved to topple them, and at one point became so flustered that they turned out the lights in the Senate chamber to try to prevent Republicans from installing new leaders.

Second, a vigorous two-party system doesn’t necessarily produce cleaner and more transparent politics than we have in one-party Massachusetts. Here is how the Times describes the two profiles in courage who are responsible for the switch in party control:

Both Mr. Espada and Mr. Monserrate said they would remain Democrats even as they work with Republicans to run the Senate.

Both men have legal troubles. Highlighting the often elastic nature of ethical stands and alliances in Albany, Republicans who earlier this year were calling on Mr. Monserrate to resign after his indictment on felony charges that he stabbed his companion with a broken glass are now welcoming him as part of their power-sharing coalition.

Asked about the reversal, Mr. Skelos said, “He’s an elected member, and the reforms are more important.”

Mr. Espada has been fined tens of thousands of dollars over several years for flouting state law by not disclosing political contributions.