New York has a particularly pathological state government because if you deleted New York City and it's environs, it would be a red state.
That alone isn't enough to explain the dysfunction. If NYC and its environs were more or less homogeneous it would dominate the state and the red parts wouldn't matter. The problem is that there's a three way split -- NYC is 42% (but parts of each of the outer boros are more suburban than urban), Nassau/Suffolk/Westchester is 20%, and the rest of the state is the other 38%. The suburbs of NYC hold the swing votes and are some of the most corrupt parts of an already corrupt state.
That alone isn't enough to explain the dysfunction. If NYC and its environs were more or less homogeneous it would dominate the state and the red parts wouldn't matter. The problem is that there's a three way split -- NYC is 42% (but parts of each of the outer boros are more suburban than urban), Nassau/Suffolk/Westchester is 20%, and the rest of the state is the other 38%. The suburbs of NYC hold the swing votes and are some of the most corrupt parts of an already corrupt state.