Making Cuomo walk the lines

Gov. Cuomo will fittingly share the ballot this November with a proposed constitutional amendment that — depending on whom you ask — will either end the ugly practice of gerrymandering or merely put lipstick on the pig.

The amendment, which goes to voters having already been approved by lawmakers, is a messy compromise that grew out of Cuomo’s most blatantly broken promise of the past four years — his failure in 2012 to veto district maps that legislative leaders had egregiously distorted for their own political benefit.

Instead, Cuomo signed off on the lawmakers’ self-serving lines — in a trade for an amendment that will supposedly fix how district lines are drawn in the future.

That outcome split the leading government watchdogs down the middle, with Citizens Union and the League of Women Voters hailing the amendment as a breakthrough, and the New York Public Interest Group and Common Cause rejecting it as fake reform.

It’s only right that Cuomo should have to justify the tradeoff as he seeks voters’ approval for a second term.

Why the question matters was compellingly explained four years ago by then-candidate Cuomo, who declared in his campaign agenda: “New York has had some of the worst gerrymandering in America.”

By long tradition, the party bosses in Albany shamelessly use their control over redistricting to create the safest possible seats for themselves and their fellow party members. Which is one reason why a mere 50 incumbent legislators have lost reelection over the past three decades, as a study released on Monday found.

This manipulation is a fundamental betrayal of democracy — empowering lawmakers to choose voters instead of the other way around. It insulates elected officials from the people they’re supposed to represent, sowing the seeds for both bad policy choices and widespread corruption.

So it was music to reformers’ ears during the 2010 campaign when Cuomo vowed to “veto any redistricting plan in 2012 that reflects partisan gerrymandering.”

He also signed the late Ed Koch’s “Heroes of Reform” pledge, which called for putting redistricting into the hands of an independent, nonpartisan commission, as has been done in other states.

Despite the veto threat, the Assembly and Senate went on to pass lines that were as thoroughly and undeniably gerryman- dered as ever.

As Monday’s study by Common Cause, EffectiveNY and the New York Public Interest Research Group found, Republicans controlling the Senate crafted upstate districts with populations that averaged 4.5% smaller than the norm — allowing them to squeeze an extra seat into a GOP-friendly area while shortchanging New York City.

Democrats who rule the Assembly did just the opposite — manipulating lines to favor Democrat-heavy downstate while disadvantaging voters everywhere else.

Another telltale sign was grotesquely shaped districts — as mapmakers twisted and turned to carve selected voters in or out.

The study authors gave the Salvador Dali/Pablo Picasso Award for Creativity in Gerrymandering to Senate District 34 in the Bronx — which they compared to a bug splattered on a windshield.

Had Cuomo followed through with his promised veto, the map-drawing most likely would have been turned over to the courts. That’s what happened with congressional districts — and the resulting lines were a model of nonpartisan evenhandedness.

But Cuomo chose to cut a grand bargain with the Legislature. In return for his signature on one more round of bad maps, law- makers would not only agree to permanent redistricting reform — but also take a politically painful vote to trim pensions for government employees and approve a second amendment to legalize casino gambling.

But how much difference the redistricting amendment would really make is debatable.

On the plus side, it creates a nonpartisan commission that gives minority parties an equal say in drawing lines. It also bars lawmakers from drawing lines to “discourage competition” or to “favor or disfavor incumbents or other particular candidates or parties.” That language could be used to put a stop to the worst forms of gerrymandering — if judges find the backbone to enforce it strictly. But why did Cuomo accept a plan that allows the Legislature to stack the redistricting commission with its friends and allies and gives it the final say on rejecting or amending the maps, within limits?

And why does the amendment fail to set hard, clear standards for how districts are drawn — such as flatly barring the outrageous practice of allowing populations to vary by as much as 5% above or below the average?

Those are questions that Cuomo must answer between now and Election Day.

He must answer for his redistricting deal