And now for something completely different: The "throw darts at the wall" approach to redistricting

by: Adama D. Brown

Wed Dec 16, 2009 at 13:57:28 PM EST

This map was constructed on the assumption of New York losing two congressional districts. Personally I'm hoping for just one, but we'll see.

I will make three disclaimers before I show you this map. One is that I have no idea of the partisan breakdown for these districts. That data wasn't available in the redistricting tool.

Second is that I didn't bother getting into the weeds of redistricting downstate, just the 11 CDs covering the state north of Yonkers. Let the downstaters who know the area deal with that.

Third is what I took into consideration making the map--or rather, what I didn't. I didn't take into consideration where the incumbents live, what the partisan makeup is, or what balances would be useful to be struck. As the "throw a dart at the wall" comment implies, this map is based almost entirely on instinct and geography, trying to group by regions. And when that was impossible, mostly with cities, attempting to fairly and logically divide up the turf. It should be taken as a start for discussion.

With all that said, on to the goodies.

NY-03: Peter King's District In Democratic Sights For 2012

by: robert.harding

Mon Jun 01, 2009 at 12:16:59 PM EDT

Now comes word today that the 3rd congressional district might be a target during the redistricting process, which would be one way for Democrats to get rid of Republican Peter King.

From Liz:

A source close to Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith confirmed "serious discussions" between Democrats in New York and Washington are underway about King's district.

"It's an obvious choice because of the population of the area," he said.

Long Island was once a Republican stronghold, but it has been trending Democratic since the last census.

The GOP still has a 46,072-voter enrollment edge in King's 3rd Congressional District, which includes parts of Nassau and Suffolk counties.

The number of Democrats has grown faster since the last redistricting, with 16,843 voters added to their ranks since 2001, compared with the Republicans' 1,336.

King isn't concerned about being on the Democratic hit list.

"This is dream talk," he said. "It's three years from now. I don't know if I'll even be alive."

It will be interesting to see what approach the Democrats take when it comes to redistricting. King is probably the most safe of the three Republicans that are still serving in the House of Representatives from New York. Targeting him makes sense, but how you would split up his district is a tougher question.

Non-partisan Congressional District attempt

by: Andrew C. White

Sat Nov 22, 2008 at 21:35:59 PM EST

Update 2: Totals where districts consist of whole counties added.

Update 3: Partial County numbers by % split of the vote and CD totals added.

Last night I started reviewing the US Census Bureau's estimations and projections for New York with a thought towards redistricting.

New York is projected to have over 19million citizens in 2010. Only a few thousand more than today and since southern and southwestern states are growing at a far more rapid pace it is expected that New York will lose 2 seats from 29 down to 27.

So I divided the estimated 2007 total by 27 to derive an average district size. I then dervised a range from +.05 to -.05% to give some leeway. I believe the current rule is .1 +/- but that creates to large a range in my opinion.

2012 Congressional Map: Discuss

by: Amherst Guy

Fri Nov 21, 2008 at 16:36:02 PM EST

Context: NY stands to lose 2 seats this year, and by pure population, one will almost inevitably have to come from the Albany area, while the other will have to come from NYC. It is nearly impossible to draw a map without Albany losing the upstate seat, and truly impossible to draw a map where upstate loses 2 seats; there are just too many people upstate.

I took a whack at it; this map is crude: the district lines are not precise; the districts don't all have exactly 770,000 714,000 people in them (the new target number), and Buffalo, Syracuse, and Albany are all split in this map, it's kind of hard to tell. Also, I may have drawn congressmen outside of their seats, this was unintentional.

Most importantly, this map leaves Upstate with 1 Republican, as Chris Lee could not hold the seat I drew for him.

Criticize away.

Redistricting: how-to and how-not-to

by: simonstl

Wed Sep 10, 2008 at 11:22:24 AM EDT

Since folks are already moving on to redistricting conversations, today might be a good day to post this.

Way back in October, I posted about a forum on redistricting held by Assemblywoman Barbara Lifton and featuring Assemblyman William Parment and former Tompkins County Legislator Mike Lane.

I posted audio and some of my handouts then, but I had the audio transcribed, and then spent a fair amount of time cleaning up the transcription. I think it's accurate now, but of course, if you find something wrong, please let me know.

The transcript seemed to be too long for the extended text, so here it is.

The key piece for me is Parment's saying:

Telling tales out of school. Perhaps the press could ask us, “Well, did you consider voter enrollments?” And I say no. Or, they say, “You mustn't consider voter enrollments.” And no, we won't consider voter enrollments.

And we didn't. We considered voter performance. We don't care how people enroll. And if you ever looked in rural… New York State… you know… that everybody that's a rural Republican doesn't vote that way. And the same is true in the cities where you have heavy, heavy Democratic component, and not everyone votes that way. So the only thing we're interested in is voter performance, not voter enrollment.

Most of the rest of it is less surprising, but in case you were wondering about the criteria legislative leaders use to gerrymander districts, registration is apparently not their focus. Much of the rest of Parment's talk illustrates the other constraints that help determine how districts are drawn. I suspect Mike Lane's comments will be popular here, but the Assembly members' response to his suggestions for independent redistricting - heck, any change to the process whatsoever - was less than encouraging.

If you can manage to read to the end, it's worth the trip. If not, hopefully it'll prove useful as reference. (And I wish I could find Assemblyman Parment's handouts - sorry!)

Bloodsucking legislators?

by: simonstl

Wed Sep 10, 2008 at 07:17:16 AM EDT

I know it's the day after the primary, and everyone's excited (for better or worse) about that, but there's still some action in Albany. Governor Paterson's initial remarks:

Mr. Paterson, a former state senator, uttered the "bloodsuckers" line as he was telling a joke about what he saw as the hypocrisy in the way some of his colleagues treated advocates for groups like the disabled.

"There were legislators who I used to think practiced their own versions of being Count Dracula in that they would be very nice to the advocates when they came to Albany," Mr. Paterson said in a speech to a group of activists for the disabled at an Albany hotel. "By 5 o'clock, the sun would go down, and they'd go back to who they really are: a bunch of bloodsuckers."

And his clarification:

"I didn't say that my colleagues were bloodsuckers. I said that there were certain people who listened to advocates, and as soon as they left and, you know, it got dark, were acting in that way - like Count Dracula - because they really didn't care."

The Daily News takes the Dracula reference and runs with it. They also explore it in an editorial.

Legislators of both parties seem to be very sad that the Governor isn't kind enough to their always-to-be-highly-respected branch. First he calls legislators back into session from "vacation" to address potentially huge fiscal problems. Then he suggests that some legislators might be hypocritical, pretending good will while really just waiting for the advocacy bus to leave Albany.

I don't know, though - despite the choice of metaphor, this doesn't sound remotely Spitzerian to me. (And at least he's not suggesting that the Democrats are for sale.)

Update: And NYCO's take on it is also fun. Duels? Hmmm... Albany's had some interesting times.

Legislature 2020? (fiction)

by: simonstl

Tue May 13, 2008 at 13:28:24 PM EDT

I don't know how well this will go over here, but it's a scenario that keeps coming up in conversation, though mostly unacknowledged. It's only one of many possibilities, but it's plausible. In Upstate 2050 style, I thought it might be worth writing up as fiction.

It's not a forecast of the future, but a possibility to contemplate as we keep discussing the relationship between Democrats and various kinds of reform.

(If there's enough interest, I'd be happy to find a home for more stories on the general Legislature 2020 subject.)

Redistricting Re-emerges (fiction)

ALBANY - As the census comes to an end, arguments about the political redistricting that follows are disrupting the usual peace in Albany.

"Our legislature has brought New York to the edge of the progressive wave," said Assembly Speaker John P. Marquez (D-Mount Vernon). "The voters clearly appreciate it, re-electing us 99% of the time over the last six years."

Senate Majority Leader Natalie Gregorio (D-Hempstead) concurred. "After decades of retrograde motion, the Democratic New York State Senate is finally helping our state's residents at full speed."

Outside of the Capitol, other signs suggest that state residents aren't happy about their government. The Assembly's approval rating fell to an all-time low of 7% in a Quinnipiac poll, while the Senate scored 12%. (56% of respondents replied "Don't Know," however.)

"It's the usual suspects complaining," said Marquez. "The Times, the Post, Gannett, Newsday, the Times-Union, the Manhattan Institute, the Brennan Center - corporate media journalists and researchers who think they can run government better than the people elected to run it. They even think they can draw districts better than the people who represent those districts."

"Marquez is one of those strange people who bought a gold medal and thinks he earned it," replied Dr. J.L. Bradley of the Manhattan Institute. "My predecessors here railed against the waste they saw in New York government back in the 90s. I can't imagine what they'd think now."

Together4NY spokeswoman Inez Ralston suggested fundamental problems in the election system. "They have no real connection to voters," she said. "They don't need to have a connection, really, when the Assembly is 127-22 Democratic and the Senate is 48-11. The 2012 redistricting really locked in Democratic super-majorities in both houses."

"We used to argue for changes in the rules," she continued, "and those might have helped, but the basic problem is that reformers, even Democratic reformers, can't break into a system stacked so heavily in favor of incumbents."

Bradley cited out-of-control member item spending as his main concern. "In 2008, they distributed around $300 million, a relatively tiny share of the budget. In 2020, they're up to $10.4 billion, a much larger share of the budget, with about half of that going to pay for services to communities that really need tax relief in some form. It makes them look good at election time, though."

Ralston noted that, while Together4NY is strictly non-partisan, the demise of the New York State Republican Party is also cause for concern. "It's not just that the districts are gerrymandered - it's that in many cases, there isn't anyone around with the strength to fight anyway."

Voter registration statistics suggest that while Democratic registration continued to climb, Republican registrations plunged over the years. The roughly 3-2 advantage Democrats held in 2010 became a 5-2 advantage in 2020, though there are now more unaffiliated voters than Republican voters.

"Some of that is demographic shift and a change in the political climate," said Ralston. "Some of it is people just giving up."

Newly-elected State Republican Chair Michael O'Rourke argued against that, blaming "Downstate machines and corruption plus the perpetual squeeze Democrats have put on Upstate New York - a lot of people have just had enough of New York State government and moved away."

O'Rourke suggested that Republicans would be seeking change through the Governor's mansion, a statewide race he believes they can win despite the party's failure to rally around a candidate in 2018.

Governor James Walton (D) couldn't be reached for this story, but in previous press conferences has argued that "I'm busy cleaning up the Executive Branch. It's up to them to clean their own houses."

[Remember, it's fiction.]

No Reform, No Raise Redux

by: phillip anderson

Fri Jan 25, 2008 at 09:29:13 AM EST

Up to you, Mr. Spitzer

Pay raises for New York's 212 legislators have to come with this essential condition. The legislators have to do their part to reform state government. That means giving up the power to draw their own districts and imposing much tougher campaign finance laws. Until the Legislature agrees to such reforms, it's an institution that defies the very spirit of democracy and remains committed to the re-election of its own members above all else. It's because legislators control the redistricting process, and benefit from notoriously weak campaign finance laws, that it takes either unspeakable scandal and or criminal indictment to vote an incumbent out of office -- if even then.

No Reform? No Raise!

Who goes?

by: simonstl

Thu Dec 27, 2007 at 16:28:46 PM EST

This evening's New York Times brings the next challenge for redistricting:

the Empire State stands to lose seats in Congress after the 2010 Census....

New York's delegation in the House of Representatives peaked at 45 seats, following the 1930 Census. As other states grew more quickly, New York's share in the House got smaller. Now, New York has only 29 seats, and stands to have only 27 after the next Census....

New York lost 2 of 31 seats after the 2000 Census, precipitating a clash between the Democrat-controlled State Assembly and the Republican-controlled State Senate, which together control redistricting in New York thanks to a provision in the state constitution requiring Congressional districts to be approved by a vote of the Legislature.

After a panel of federal judges appointed a special master to come up with new boundaries, legislative leaders agreed on their own plan, one that effectively took one seat from each party.

Two Republicans were forced into a single district in the Hudson Valley and the Catskills, while two Democrats upstate found themselves compressed into a single district linking parts of Rochester and Buffalo.

Will we do it any more openly this time?

Redistricting conversation

by: simonstl

Wed Oct 10, 2007 at 18:30:39 PM EDT

I don't have enough time to write a real story yet, but if anyone wants to listen to a two-hour session on redistricting, I've posted the audio (42.7MB MP3) from an event this afternoon and may eventually get a transcript.

Assemblyman William Parment, who chaired the 2002 Assembly redistricting, talks for most of it, with varying levels of interestingness. A lot of it feels to me like running out the clock, and ducking and dodging points that might be genuinely troublesome if addressed - but at the same time I think what he says makes pretty clear what a broken process it is. Former Tompkins County Legislator Michael Lane speaks up for reform and independent redistricting, and Assemblywoman Barbara Lifton plays host.

I also brought some handouts, and I'll get more online soon.

I'll have more soon, but wanted to get that out into the world. Local elections are a massive distraction right now.

Update: The transcript is now available.

Mr Smith Goes To Washington

by: phillip anderson

Thu Jun 28, 2007 at 17:11:57 PM EDT

N.Y. Senators Look to D.C. for Support

As New York Democrats move ever closer to their dream of capturing the state Senate for the first time in 40 years — and with it, full control of state government — they are turning to Members of Congress and the national Democratic establishment for help.

State Senate Minority Leader Malcolm Smith (D) spent two days in Washington, D.C., this week, meeting with Capitol Hill and party leaders, raising money and spreading the word that New York Democrats want their state to serve as a national model for innovative policies and political reform.

“It’s important for us to show the leaders in Congress how things have changed in the New York state Senate,” Smith said in an interview Wednesday.

But Smith and his allies are mixing the “good government” message with a flexing of political muscle, telling national Democrats that they can help the party add to its Congressional majority by picking up seats in the Empire State, where Democrats already hold a 23-6 advantage in the House delegation.

“For us, it’s parochial,” Smith said. “We want to get back the seats we lost in Texas.”

...

Smith said the Democrats could target as many as six Republican seats next year, and are also monitoring the retirement plans of four GOP Senators in potentially competitive districts.

...

If the Democrats win the state Senate majority in 2008, as Smith predicts, they are almost certain to control the redistricting process that follows the 2010 Census because they have a popular governor and a huge majority in the state Assembly. But the desire of Democratic legislative leaders to steamroll Republicans on redistricting could run into a formidable foe from their own party: Gov. Eliot Spitzer (D).

Spitzer, whose reform-minded agenda produced an eye-popping 70 percent showing at the polls in November, repeatedly has said that he favors creating an independent commission to handle legislative and Congressional redistricting in New York. But Smith — who maintains that some of the reforms Spitzer embraces were first advanced by Democratic state Senators — hopes the governor can be persuaded to leave the map-making in the hands of the politicians.

Even if they have to swallow a redistricting commission, Democratic Senate leaders believe the next legislative and Congressional maps will be fairer than the ones drawn after the 2000 Census.

The New York Senators took their message this week to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.), House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (Ill.), House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D- Mich.) and Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, as well as several Members from the Empire State Congressional delegation. They also had a fundraiser Wednesday night at the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee’s D.C. headquarters.

It's good to see some interest from the national party and from our congressional delegation in what happens here at the state level. Maybe if we'd had such an interest in '06...

If you can, I suggest you read the whole thing.

Redistricting is "complicated"

by: simonstl

Tue Mar 20, 2007 at 10:23:54 AM EDT

On the opinion page of today's Ithaca Journal, Assemblywoman Barbara Lifton has a guest column that should be remembered for years to come as a classic case of how to argue for inaction. She says she's "interested" in an independent commission, but apparently dreads the details of how it would work as "the devil is in the details."

She only comes vaguely close to acknowledging that having Republicans draw the lines for the State Senate and the Democrats draw the lines for the Assembly is a really really truly horrible idea, one that ensures that legislators turn over their seats mostly when the leadership, not the voters, want them to go:

Bipartisan systems have often been a check on corruption, as in our electoral system, which is run in a bipartisan fashion. On the other hand, it runs the danger of bias toward maintaining the status quo.

Praise the current system first, then back off slightly with a comment about the status quo. The piece is brilliantly short, long enough only for her to express her concerns about solutions without ever expressing whether or not there might possibly be a problem. Bringing Assemblyman Parment, who chaired the effort creating the current lines for the Assembly, in for a visit, certainly doesn't sound like she thinks that there may be a problem.

Amazing - and depressing. It may be a "complicated issue", but it wouldn't take a perfect solution to make matters a lot better than they are today.

Inversion

by: simonstl

Sun Mar 04, 2007 at 20:36:39 PM EST

This is way abstract, but after reading "Three Men in a Room", talking with my legislator, and thinking about what I've seen in New York State politics since I was a wee lad (Hugh Carey is the first governor I remember), it seems like it works.

We normally describe political power as flowing up from the voters. As uninvolved as voters may be, and as corrupt as politicians may be, voters provide a key check on the power of politicians.

The New York State Legislature operates on a reverse principle. The check on the power of nearly all politicians comes from the leadership. If you want to get anything done, you have to listen to the leadership. If voters elect someone who won't (wrong party or otherwise disinclined), the voters can be punished by a denial of support for their legislator's projects.