Posts Tagged ‘NY Daily News’
Rep. Charlie Rangel, the longtime Harlem powerbroker, and Washington Heights pol Adriano Espaillat could vie to represent a chunk of the Bronx on Capitol Hill under the latest redistricting plan out of Albany.
And proposed state Senate and Assembly district maps carve up some Bronx neighborhoods, such as Bedford Park and Morris Park.
Bronx voters left a community forum in Norwood last week bewildered by the convoluted process that draws new legislative district lines every ten years.
Read more: http://articles.nydailynews.com/2012-03-13/news/31161753_1_bronx-congressional-districts-morris-park
State Senate Republicans formally objected Wednesday to a federal magistrate’s plan to whack freshman GOP Rep. Bob Turner’s Brooklyn-Queens congressional district.
In papers filed with U.S. Magistrate Roanne Mann, the Senate GOP said her congressional redistricting plan released Tuesday — which eliminates Turner’s seat will disenfranchise “traditional Russian and Jewish neighborhoods in Brooklyn.”
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/gop-objects-judge-redistrict-plans-article-1.1035343
Freshman Queens Rep. Bob Turner’s district would be axed as a part of an overall reworking of the state’s congressional boundaries put forward Tuesday morning by a federal magistrate.
With state legislative leaders unable to come to agreement, U.S. Magistrate Roanne Mann was charged by a panel of three federal judges to come up with a redistricting plan that eliminates two of the state’s 29 congressional seats as required because of national population shifts the past decade
Earlier than expected, here are the new New York Congressional redistricting maps put out by the special master. More details after the illustrations; demographics after the maps:
Though Senate Republicans and Assembly Democrats are both in favor of considering incumbency when drawing district maps, good government group Common Cause/NY is not on board.
The organization wrote to Judge Roanne Mann, the court-appointed special master in charge of coming up with a plan to rejigger the lines, asking her factor out incumbency when making her decisions.
Common Cause/NY has designed its own reform maps, which have gained approval from the Daily News, the New York Times and Newsday.
Read More: http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypolitics/2012/03/common-causeny-has-redistricting-concerns
A three-judge panel has taken control of drafting new congressional district lines after the Legislature’s abject failure to fulfill this once-in-a-decade responsibility.
This is good. For once, the dysfunction of Democratic Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Republican Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos has done New Yorkers a favor.
The judges can be trusted to do a far better job of mapmaking than Albany’s power-grabbing hacks can. That bunch could not reach an agreement because they draw district lines primarily to suit political needs. As a result, they embarrassed themselves by filing competing maps in court.
The judicial mapmaking got off to a strong start when the judges said that court-drawn districts must be compact and contiguous — that is, not shaped like Rorschach inkblots — and avoid chopping up cohesive communities.
In short, the judges signaled that they would follow statutory and constitutional principles that Albany pols routinely flout.
Also excellent was a decision to use as a benchmark maps authored by reformers at Common Cause New York — who followed a straight-ahead, nonpartisan methodology that puts the gerrymanderers to shame.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/yorkers-better-judges-pols-drawing-districts-article-1.1032193
A previous state Senate GOP redistricting plan to merge six city Democrats into three districts will be dramatically scaled back.
Under a revised redistricting plan due soon, Queens Sens. Michael Gianaris and Jose Peralta are no longer expected to be put into a single district, insiders say. The plan should also “decouple” Brooklyn Sens. Eric Adams and Velmanette Montgomery.
But Queens Democratic Sens. Toby Ann Stavisky and Tony Avella would still merge into one district in order to create an Asian-majority district in Flushing, insiders said.
Criticism is already being hurled at an emerging deal to reform the once-a-decade process of redrawing the boundaries of state legislative and congressional districts.
Critics charge that a constitutional amendment being negotiated to make the partisan-influenced process more independent includes a “poison pill” that would still leave the ultimate decision in the hands of legislators.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/deal-redraw-district-boundaries-fire-article-1.1032401
About two years ago, I felt the same way as most New Yorkers — our state government was dysfunctional, self-serving and an embarrassment. Along with a group of like-minded reformers, I decided to do something about it, forming New York Uprising, an advocacy effort to change the way legislative and congressional district lines are drawn.
Our goal, simply, was to return power to the people.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/veto-map-gov-cuomo-article-1.1030822
Every decade following the decennial census, states across the country engage in the process of redistricting. This means state legislators draw new district boundaries for state legislative and congressional seats to reflect changes in population.
While the district maps almost always contain new, convoluted shapes as states gain and lose congressional seats or adjust to internal shifts in population, the process remains static: partisan and political.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/a-veto-article-1.1030125
Gov. Cuomo holds the ultimate weapon in the battle against gerrymandering — his threatened veto of district maps drawn in ridiculously partisan fashion by the Legislature.
He must void the absurd boundaries drawn by the Assembly and Senate and turn map -making over to the courts — except in the unlikely event that lawmakers radically alter their work and establish long-term reforms.
As things stand, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver’s Democrats and Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos’ Republicans conspired in drawing districts with grossly uneven populations that maximize incumbent protection.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/cuomo-demand-a-permanent-gerrymandering-ban-article-1.1029595
A federal judge in Brooklyn will redraw the state’s congressional boundaries by March 12, the jurist announced Monday.
Magistrate Roanne Mann is acting in the role of a special master after the chief justice of the U.S. Court of Appeals ordered a panel of judges to draw up new congressional districts in response to a lawsuit filed late last year in Brooklyn Federal Court.
With candidate petitioning slated to begin on March 20, Mann is moving quickly to have the redistricting in place based on the latest census data and input from experts — including Columbia University Law Prof. Nathaniel Persily.
Former state AG Robert Abrams weighed in on the State’s redistricting issue this afternoon — and says Gov. Cuomo’s clout should come into play.
Bill Hammond and I report:
“We need a permanent solution,” Abrams said of the once-a-decade procedure that “contaminates the democratic process.”
The ideal method, he said, would be for Gov. Cuomo to use his leverage for government reform. Should the legislature improve the current maps, give passage to a constitutional amendment and pass a reform law that takes place immediately, Cuomo should do away with his veto vow and reach an agreement with lawmakers.
Gov. Cuomo Thursday unleashed a scorched-earth attack on state lawmakers, branding them hypocrites and highlighting what he sees as the inconvenient truths of their approach to redistricting.
Setting flame to turf on both sides of the political aisle, Cuomo fumed that he has had enough of what he called the “political theater” surrounding the once-a-decade redrawing of legislative district boundaries.
He ripped into Senate Democrats for a letter first reported Thursday by the Daily News in which the minority urged him to veto the redistricting proposals created by the majorities in both chambers.
State Senate Democrats again called for Gov. Cuomo to veto any legislative districts redrawn by the Legislature — but this time ensured they could block a possible override vote.
Twenty-two members of the Democratic minority in the 61-member Senate signed a letter sent to Cuomo Wednesday, meaning the GOP majority in the chamber would not be able to get the two-thirds vote needed to overturn a gubernatorial veto.
“As our state’s redistricting process reaches a critical stage, we wanted to reiterate our vow to stand with you as you fulfill your pledge to reject any proposed district maps drawn by the (Legislature),” the letter, obtained by the Daily News, stated.
