Democracy is 'a form of worship,' H.L. Mencken said at his acerbic best. 'It is the worship of jackals by jackasses.' And to think that Mencken, who died in Baltimore in 1956, reached that conclusion without the benefit of having observed politics as it is practiced these days in New York. It has been noted in this space that New Yorkers should, collectively, find it tough to look in the mirror each morning without wincing. In the last few years, they have elected enough politicians who disgraced themselves to get up a baseball game in the exercise yard at Sing Sing. Were he alive today, Mencken would no doubt find the jackal-jackass relationship to be as solid as ever. But even New Yorkers have limits when it comes to tolerating knaves. Voters in Queens proved that in a special election the other day when they told Hiram Monserrate, the shame-deficient former state senator, that they wanted him out of their lives. Go, they said. Now, please. By an overwhelming margin, they elected Assemblyman Jose R. Peralta to the Senate seat that Monserrate held before he was convicted of assaulting his female companion and was then tossed out on his ear by his fellow senators. Even senators have limits on what they will tolerate, although their action is being challenged in the courts. Monserrate ran against Peralta, whining the whole way about being the victim, David to the other guy's Goliath. People in the 13th State Senate District weren't buying it. It cost New York taxpayers about $350,000 to be rid of him. That, more or less, is the price tag for organizing a special election hereabouts, the city's Board of Elections says. New Yorkers will be hit up for another $350,000 for a special election in Brooklyn on Tuesday to fill the vacant City Council seat of Simcha Felder. A mere five days after being sworn into a new term, his third, Felder resigned to become a deputy city comptroller, with a salary nearly 50 percent higher than what he earned in the Council. Arguably, $350,000 is a small price to pay for democracy. But we keep hearing from politicians how every dollar counts in hard times. So there is a question about who should pay the bill when a special election is required not because of death or illness or some other unforeseeable calamity but, rather, because of an officeholder's gross misdeeds. Or because of raw ambition -- as when a representative gives up her House seat to become a U.S. senator after the old senator quits to become secretary of state. With so many New York officials forced out in recent years because of bad behavior, we have had a bunch of special elections. Why not make the politicians who are responsible bear the freight? They all have campaign funds. This notion was raised in a Daily News editorial two months ago, after Felder announced that he would leave the Council. Let him and his new boss, City Comptroller John C. Liu, draw on their campaign accounts, the editorialists said, to pay for 'this unnecessary election.' 'Honor,' they said, 'demands nothing less.' Felder's abandonment of his Council seat was especially galling to some people because he had been a leading force in the vote to extend term limits for the mayor and lawmakers like himself who would have otherwise been barred from running again. Surely he knew before the start of his new term on Jan. 1 that a more lucrative job awaited him. He may have even discussed it before Election Day in November. Liu's victory in the Democratic primary in September made his ascension to comptroller a certainty; he had months to consider appointments like Felder's. In an interview published last month in The Jewish Star, a weekly newspaper aimed at an Orthodox audience, Felder said it would not have been right to quit the Council for a job in private industry. But with the comptroller's office, he said, he had 'a rare opportunity' to do good for the entire city. He called it 'Kiddush Hashem' -- in Hebrew, sanctification of God's name. Perhaps. But he also had a splendid opportunity to do good for himself. As for Monserrate, he promises to become the Chucky of New York politics: the one who keeps coming back. He may run for other offices, he said. One possibility is Peralta's Assembly seat, which is vacant. Monserrate just may give voters another chance to put Mencken's jackal-jackass theory to the test. 