Garbage in, garbage out
Last month, we were too kind in speculating that the inaugural New York State Independent Redistricting Commission could be a sham, leaving open a sliver of hope that fair, nonpartisan districts might be drawn for the Legislature and Congress. How naive we were. We forgot our own mantra that Albany inevitably does the dirty deal, whether in the now smoke-free backroom or in public. The panel was predestined to be a hack fest, as yesterday’s unveiling of the maps proved.
Without even looking at the lines, everyone knows it’s rigged for party advantage — because the commission published dueling sets of district lines for the next decade of representation for the 150 Assembly seats, 63 Senate constituencies and 26 congressional districts (down from 27 because New York couldn’t scrounge up another 89 people to be tallied in the 2020 census). There’s a trifecta of maps crafted by Democrats called “letters” and another triple set prepared by Republicans labeled “names,” matching the commission’s split-downthe-middle membership.
Since the panel — the entire purpose of which was supposed to be transcending partisan deadlock — deadlocked along partisan lines, there’s even more reason for the Legislature, which is run by the Dems with veto-proof majorities in each house, to reject its recommendations and draw their own maps, just like it always was done. Those will surely be gerrymandered up the wazoo, letting incumbents pick their voters.
When the Independent Redistricting Commission was put on the statewide ballot in 2014 to be adopted into the state Constitution, Rensselaer County state Supreme Court Justice Patrick McGrath wisely forbade the Board of Elections from using the words “independent commission” to describe Proposition 1. He wrote, “legislative semantics do not change the reality that the commission’s plan is little more than a recommendation to the Legislature, which can reject it for unstated reasons and draw its own lines.”
So right he was. After pretending to offer the people a good-government reform, the bosses will have their dirty, partisan way. As they always have.