Posts Tagged ‘WNYC’
Legislative leaders and Governor Cuomo are working on a constitutional amendment to reform redistricting in New York. But critics say in its present form, the proposal will not accomplish that.
Legislative leaders are crafting a constitutional amendment to create a bipartisan panel to draw new legislative and congressional district lines after the next census in 2020.
Read More: http://www.wnyc.org/articles/wnyc-news/2012/mar/09/redistricting-amendment-scrutinized/
Federal magistrate judge Roanne Mann is bringing together the sides with skin in the redistricting game today at a hearing to review legislative and community activist proposals for how the state’s 27 congressional districts could be drawn.
The hearing comes as state lawmakers and Governor Andrew Cuomo are reportedly in the midst of trying to hammer out a deal that would see better lines for the Governor to pass alongside a constitutional amendment to change the redistricting process going forward.
Assembly Speaker Shelly Silver’s press office just released a statement on behalf of Assemblyman Jack McEneny, the Albany-based Democrat representing the Assembly’s Democratic majority in the state’s redistricting process. The statement, according to McEneny, is in response to the criticism being levied against the reported language of a constitutional amendment that appeared this morning in the Albany Times-Union. The amendment would be part of a compromise that would allow the Governor to sign a second, supposedly improved set of district lines for the state senate and assembly.
Read More: http://empire.wnyc.org/2012/03/state-assembly-our-redistricting-amendment-is-better-than-gianaris/
At the end of today, everyone who has skin in the congressional redistricting game will need to have their proposals for new lines into Judge Roanne Mann. In preparation for the hearing on Monday, March 5, Judge Mann has laid out the ground rules for those who’ll present their arguments on Monday:
Read More: http://empire.wnyc.org/2012/03/federal-judge-lays-out-the-rules-for-march-5-redistricting-hearing/
The Times-Union’s Casey Seiler has a piece up today about the emerging details of a possible deal between Governor Andrew Cuomo and the state legislature for a constitutional amendment to change the state’s redistricting process.
“A possible constitutional change to New York’s redistricting process would create a 10-member independent panel to draw the state’s political lines beginning in 2021, but would allow the Legislature to make final tweaks to the plan if the Assembly and Senate fail to pass it after two tries,” Seiler writes.
Read More: http://empire.wnyc.org/2012/03/details-emerge-on-possible-redistricting-amendment/
The redistricting conversation has been focused lately on the incremental issues of the now: Cuomo’s increasingly pale veto statements, a federal court pushing forward with their own congressional maps, the state legislature failing to meet its own deadline for new maps.
But there’s also a battle of ideas happening over what a constitutional amendment—something Cuomo and others say could be part of a compromise in the current process—giving future redistricting over to an independent process. But are all processes created equal?
Read More: http://empire.wnyc.org/2012/02/public-battle-begins-over-redistricting-constitutional-amendment/
Dick Dadey, president of Citizens Union, joins us to discuss the latest twists and turns in the redistricting battle, and why Governor Cuomo’s veto threat isn’t working.
Read More: http://www.wnyc.org/shows/bl/2012/feb/28/why-you-should-care-about-redistricting/
24
FEB
Former AG Abrams: Gov, use your veto for a ‘permanent solution’ to partisan redistricting (WNYC))
Calling the process poisons for democracy, former Attorney General Bob Abrams told reporters on a conference call that Governor Andrew Cuomo was in “a unique moment in the state’s history” when it comes to the decennial process of redrawing legislative district lines.
“Governor Cuomo in the campaign as candidate for governor made a pledge about vetoing lines that would be drawn in a partisan way,” Abrams said. “We have for the first time some lever of power of the legislature.”
Capital New York’s Josh Benson penned (or typed, really) a great piece up on their site today laying out the current redistricting scenario. Over the weekend Governor Andrew Cuomo appeared to be showing his cards in way that validated the cynics belief that he’s always been bluffing on his threat to veto the legislature’s lines. As Benson points out–and to what a piece by Reid Pillifant alluded to last week–Cuomo, despite sounding like he isn’t, is in fact the most important piece in this whole situation:
Redistricting is a once-a-decade chance to make government look more like the people who live in New York. It cuts to the quick of the idea of representative democracy: that our elected officials are the ones that best represent us. But the process can wind up benefiting politicians and political parties more than voters.
In a recent poll, 52 percent of New Yorker’s said they want an independent commission to draw lines. As it stands now, they feel like elected officials are allowed to pick their voters, and not the other way around.
Assuming the courts don’t step in before the legislature agrees to its lines, there still remain two big hurdles to getting whatever LATFOR comes up with passed into law:
1. The Voting Rights Act: As we’ve written about before, New York is subject to a number of provisions in the Voting Rights Act. Before any lines become law, the Department of Justice or a special Washington DC-based court has to clear the lines. The last redistricting process was during a Republican administration. Some observers expect the Obama DoJ to be a tougher sell for lines, especially if ethnic and racial minority groups make their concerns heard early.
Read More: http://empire.wnyc.org/2012/02/reviewing-the-redistricting-endgame/
Earlier on Tuesday, Democratic State Senator Martin Malavé Dilan filed a lawsuit in state court challenging the constitutionality of Senate Republicans’ plans to create a new district in the Albany area. The plan would bring the State Senate’s total size up from 62 to 63 seats.
“The lawsuit is being filed because the majority in the New York State Senate failed to follow the constitution of the State of New York, Section 4, which…if you follow the formula strictly it would only result in 62 seats,” Dilan said before the Bronx LATFOR hearing on Tuesday. “This time around they decided needed a 63rd seat; perhaps to continue control of the New York State Senate.”
Read More: http://empire.wnyc.org/2012/02/are-early-redistricting-lawsuits-too-early/
Last time I saw Sean Coffey, he was sitting on a stage in Manhattan with three other candidates for attorney general back in 2010, arguing why he should get the job.
He didn’t end up winning the five-way primary (Nassau County DA Kathleen Rice wasn’t at the event), but he’s since joined up with Common Cause and on Tuesday gave testimony at the LATFOR meeting in the Bronx. Draft state Senate and Assembly maps were released last week, and the Tuesday hearing was the first in a second round being held in New York City over the next week.
Read More: http://empire.wnyc.org/2012/01/former-ag-candidate-coffey-says-latfor-hearings-may-be-a-kubaki-show/
Jerry Vattamala, staff attorney for the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, discusses how the redistricting plans released by the legislature create majority Asian-American districts. Suffolk County Assemblyman Phil Ramos talks about the Hispanic community in Long Island, and how redistricting splits up communities there.
Read More: http://www.wnyc.org/shows/bl/2012/jan/30/new-yorks-redistricting-plan-revealed/
A letter signed by prominent members of clergy from throughout New York calls on Governor Andrew Cuomo to “stand up for the rights of every vote” when it comes to redistricting.
The letter comes as the bipartisan legislative committee responsible for drawing new political boundaries is set to release draft maps in the next week or so, according to Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos. The clergymen say they are worried the process will “the unjust opportunity to choose which voters they represent and not allowed the voters to choose their representatives.”
Read More: http://empire.wnyc.org/2012/01/clergy-to-cuomo-stick-to-your-guns-on-redistricting/
It seems like a well rehearsed script by now:
1. Some insidery government operation is about to get under way, full of anticipated opaque backroom dealings and partisan manipulations.
2. Good government groups, and the political opposition, make a tremendous noise about fairness, openness, and a government for, of, and by the people.
3. The insidery government operation makes noise about doing the right thing. Then they go about doing exactly what everyone was scared they’d do.
4. The political opposition screams bloody murder. And good government groups walk back their rhetoric, talk of compromise, and figure out how to be on the same stage as the insidery government operation folks when the deal gets signed.
Read More: http://empire.wnyc.org/2012/01/good-gov-coalition-drops-nonpartisan-from-redistricting-lingo/
At least that’s what Todd Breitbart, the leading technical voice blasting Senate Republicans, appears to have figured out.
According to his analysis, the Republicans’ Washington DC-based lawyer Michael Carvin used the data set released back in March:
The population counts shown in his table, “2010 Senate Size Calculation,” are from the Census Bureau’s March 2010 redistricting data release (the PL94-171 data). These counts – the state total, the ‘ratio of apportionment,’ the county totals and the figures for the parts of the Bronx – reflect neither the subtraction of the prison populations nor the reallocation of prisoners to their prior home addresses.
Read More: http://empire.wnyc.org/2012/01/senate-memo-for-63rd-seat-doesnt-caluclate-prisoner-shift/
As a new Quinnipiac poll says, support for an independent commission to try new political boundaries is on the rise. More than half–52 percent–of those polled said said it was time for the Legislature to hand over the line drawing to someone else.
