Posts Tagged ‘Buffalo News’
There’s no deal in sight in Albany regarding new congressional lines for the state — meaning the odds are growing that a court will adopt a judge’s plan that gives the Buffalo area two districts while putting Rep. Kathleen C. Hochul, D-Amherst, in Republican territory.
Read more: http://www.buffalonews.com/city/capital-connection/washington/article760864.ece
A federal judge today released a congressional redistricting map for New York state that puts Rep. Brian Higgins, D-Buffalo, and Rep. Kathleen C. Hochul, D-Amherst, in the same district.
The remap offered by Magistrate Judge Roanne Mann creates a new, strongly Republican district surrounding the Buffalo area and stretching to Monroe County.
Like two partisan plans offered last week by the State Senate and State Assembly, Mann’s plan pushes Rep. Louise M. Slaughter, D-Fairport, out of the Buffalo area and into a new Rochester-based district.
Read More: http://www.buffalonews.com/city/politics/article750195.ece
Assembly Democrats and Senate Republicans have put forth radically different congressional maps for Western New York, with the Democrats shoring up Rep. Kathleen C. Hochul, D-Amherst, by extending her district into Buffalo and the GOP giving her a tougher, more rural district.
The partisan maps, released today, both push Rep. Louise M. Slaughter, D-Fairport, out of the Buffalo area and into a Rochester-based district.
Read More: http://www.buffalonews.com/city/politics/article744849.ece
Note to state lawmakers: Fix your sham redistricting plan now or fix it later. Now is better. You already know that Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo will veto this joke proposal. By scrapping it now and replacing it with a plan that actually serves the interests of democracy, you can save time and perhaps even save face with New York’s disgusted voters.
The plan is bad. As predicted, and despite Cuomo’s clear position, legislators redrew their district lines to protect incumbents and, ultimately, the status quo. A classic case in point is Western New York’s 60th State Senate District, now held by Mark Grisanti, R-Buffalo.
Read More: http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial-page/buffalo-news-editorials/article741829.ece
A proposed State Senate district whose lines squiggle and swerve around a chunk of Erie County would weaken the votes of African-Americans in the region’s two biggest urban areas, critics of a proposal from a Legislature-appointed panel said Thursday.
The proposed boundary lines for the 60th State Senate District seat, now held by Republican Mark Grisanti, drew the most criticism from speakers at a public hearing held in Buffalo City Hall by the State Legislative task force working on redistricting.
Read More: http://www.buffalonews.com/city/article733271.ece
Legislators from the two majority parties in control of the Legislature on Monday defended their plan for redrawing Senate and Assembly district lines as government watchdog groups derided the new maps as incumbent-driven gerrymandering.
The proposed lines met their first public hearing since being released last week, and the mantra of the day from map-makers was simple: They are legal, legal, legal.
Read More: http://www.buffalonews.com/city/capital-connection/albany/article717823.ece
Rep. Maurice Hinchey, a senior House Democrat from the Catskills, is retiring at the end of this year — a move that could end up saving the congressional seat of either Rep. Kathleen C. Hochul, D-Amherst, or Rep. Brian Higgins, D-Buffalo.
Hinchey’s spokesman, Mike Morosi, told the Poughkeepsie Journal on Wednesday that the 10-term lawmaker will announce his retirement today in Kingston. Hinchey, 73, had surgery last week for colon cancer, and Morosi said the lawmaker is now cancer-free.
Read More: http://www.buffalonews.com/city/capital-connection/washington/article714281.ece
Prisoners in state institutions once were reliable residents for upstate lawmakers to count as constituents when it came time to draw up new Assembly and Senate lines during the once-a-decade process.
But Tuesday, lawmakers on a panel devising new district boundaries formally agreed to use the previous residential addresses as the “homes” of 46,003 inmates and not the state prisons where they are temporarily — or permanently in some cases — confined.
Read More: http://www.buffalonews.com/city/capital-connection/albany/article704969.ece
It’s time for Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo to speak up. The State Legislature is pursuing its mandate to redraw political district boundaries in its usual—which is to say, corrupt— fashion. When he was campaigning for office last year, Cuomo promised to veto any plan that was drawn with politics in mind. He needs to publicly renew that pledge.
Read More: http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial-page/buffalo-news-editorials/article571492.ece
The Buffalo News
By News Editorial Board
Published:July 13, 2011
By News Editorial Board
Published:July 13, 2011
Here we go again: Ten years after ignoring critics and redrawing state and federal election district boundaries in a politically corrupt fashion, the New York State Legislature is embarking on the same disreputable path. While the Legislature could still set off in the right direction after a bad start, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo should plan on keeping his veto pen handy.
Read entire article at the link below:
http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial-page/article488053.ece
