As the Assembly wound down last month, from left, are Michael O’Keefe, House fiscal policy adviser; lobbyist Jason Martiesian; Susanne Greschner, director of policy and research for RIPEC; and lobbyist Kelly Sheridan.

The Providence Journal / Connie Grosch

PROVIDENCE — When the new General Assembly session convenes in the January snow, one thing is certain: it will resemble the legislature that wrapped up business in last month’s muggy heat.

Months of contentious wrangling over state spending, illegal immigration, renewable energy and the usual hot-button social issues — abortion and gay marriage — in the end mattered naught.

Legislators did little more than approve a state budget and flee the State House for the safer climes of vacations, home districts and the usual rounds of election-year electioneering.

So cue up that old Who song, “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” the one that says “here comes the new boss, same as the old boss.”

If you’re looking for substantial change, fuggetaboutit.

Despite the endless rumors, most incumbent lawmakers are running again. Just 2 of 38 senators and 9 in the 75-member House have decided against running for reelection. Once again, the state’s weak Republican Party has not fielded strong candidates to challenge most of the incumbent Democrats.

The returns won’t be in on just how many uncontested — or barely contested –– races there will be this year until candidates are certified on July 17.

Yet, it is a fairly good bet that there will not be more than a dozen truly competitive legislative elections between Westerly’s Napatree Point and Woonsocket’s North End.

Republicans make lots of noise about challenging Democratic incumbents, but the state GOP will be lucky to pick up a handful of seats in the House and Senate. In the House, the Republicans could actually lose seats. Six of the nine incumbents not running again are Republicans or former Republicans. And the GOP couldn’t even find a candidate for the seat vacated by Rep. Joseph Amaral, of Tiverton, meaning a Democrat automatically walks into that slot.

While everybody complains about the General Assembly, the sad truth is that most Rhode Islanders don’t care enough about what happens on Smith Hill to run for office or get involved in a campaign to elect somebody new.

The result is that at the beginning of the 21st century, the state’s once-robust political and civic culture is wasting away. Republican state Chairman Giovanni Cicione and Democratic state Chairman William Lynch don’t agree on much, but both say that it isn’t easy to get people interested in running for the State House.

Young lawyers shy from running, says Lynch, because holding political office can interfere with a successful law practice. The time commitments of the modern Assembly are endless. Navigating state ethics and financial disclosure laws is difficult. “Nobody wants to be put into the position where they have a conflict of interest or the appearance of a conflict,” says Lynch.

The monetary rewards aren’t much — legislators get about $14,000 per year, plus state health insurance benefits. Gone are the days when long service meant a pension.

Business people, too, want no part of the legislature, says Lynch. “People just don’t want the hassle.”

Cicione says the chaotic way the Assembly is run discourages Republican candidates. “People generally view the system as rigged. It is hard to convince people to run when they see how much time it takes, when there are five unproductive months of passing meaningless resolutions and everything gets rushed though at the end and you get asked to vote on 150 bills you don’t have time to read at the last minute.”

Legislatures have always been run this way. It often resembles the mall at Christmas, or the post office on April 15. Other than the addition of computers and television cameras, the atmosphere is much as it was in the 18th century.

In 1907, an East Side reformer named Theodore Francis Green, then a professor at Brown University, won election to the House. He was aghast at the way the legislature slept through the early months of the session, then rushed to push through hundreds of bills at the end. Green complained, but nobody really listened; eventually, he won the governorship and a U.S. Senate seat. Along the way he lost his contempt for the system and became adroit at using it for his own party’s purposes, as Rhode Island politicians have ever since Roger Williams paddled his canoe across the Seekonk and became the state’s first white settler in 1636.

In the 101 years since Green was first elected not much has changed. The Assembly still resembles a Moscow show trial from the 1930s, with everything that happens in public hearings done for effect and all the real decisions made behind the closed doors of the top leaders’ offices.

What has changed is the decline in the state’s democracy. In the 1950s and 1960s, it was rare for a legislator to run without opposition. In 1950, even the Democratic House speaker had a reasonably competitive race from a GOP opponent. As recently as 1970, none of the House and Senate seats went uncontested.

The money wasn’t any better then — legislators received $5 per day in those days.

There is no shortage of complaints about the Assembly. Listen for 10 minutes to talk radio — what basketball coach Rick Pitino aptly calls the “fellowship of the miserable” — and you’ll hear about how stupid, corrupt and generally useless are legislators.

Everybody has a theory about why the Assembly is so bad. The list is long — greedy business interests, greedy union workers, corrupt pols, the “special interests.”

Before you complain next time, look in the mirror. We get the kind of government we deserve. An apathetic citizenry can expect no more. Government’s failure is the collective responsibility of all Rhode Islanders.

As the bard said, “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.”

smackay@projo.com