You don’t have to be a 24/7 MSNBC or Fox News-watching political junkie to know that this year’s contest for control of the State Senate is pivotal to the future of New York politics because of next year’s redistricting.
Every 10 years, after the census, the boundaries of congressional and state legislative districts are redrawn to account for reapportionment and population shifts. It’s almost cliché to note that the map of New York’s districts looks like a work of abstract art that would confound Picasso during his cubist phase.
In New York, the majority in the state legislature has the final say on whether to approve, disapprove or amend a redistricting plan presented by an advisory commission, whose members are chosen by the majority and minority leaders of the Senate and Assembly.
With Democrats firmly in control of the State Assembly and Andrew Cuomo enjoying a commanding lead in the race for governor, Republicans could face electoral extinction in New York if Democrats maintain their current 32-30 majority in the Senate, affording them control over the redistricting process.
Should Democrats hold onto the State Senate, analysts have predicted that Republicans in majority Democratic districts, such as Frank Padavan, would be most in danger of having their districts altered to render them either uncompetitive or forced into a district with another incumbent.
Such so-called partisan gerrymanders, where one party draws district lines in order to maximize its representation at the expense of the other party, while seemingly unfair, have been upheld as constitutional by the Supreme Court in recent decisions.
In fact, while districts with absurd boundaries and uncouth geometric shapes are visually distasteful and offend innate senses of propriety, the Court has declined to hold district compactness and attractiveness to constitute an independent constitutional requirement for state legislative districts.
Apart from failure to comply with the Voting Rights Act, disenfranchisement of racial minorities and violations of “one person, one vote,” courts have largely refrained from striking down redistricting plans adopted by legislatures.
Lacking judicial remedies, good government groups have proposed taking politics out of the redistricting process by vesting an independent, non-partisan commission with the authority to draw the boundaries and giving the legislature just an up or down vote on the plan, a system that has existed in Iowa for decades.
In New York, more than half of the members of the legislature are elected with over 80 percent of the vote. Change is clearly called for, where competitive “fair fight” districts are implemented and the two-party system is protected.
Daniel Egers is Executive Director of the Queens Republican Party and an advisor to the Assembly campaign of Vince Tabone.
