gerrymandering

I’ve been redistricted again. I haven’t moved, but New York’s new congressional district boundaries have, and the new lines divide our little town between two districts – neither of them represented by our current member of Congress. And it makes me feel a bit, well, disempowered. It’s as though politicians chose whose constituent I will be, rather than me choosing the politician who will represent me.

Last week, New York’ highest court heard arguments over whether it should intervene to allow changes to the state’s Congressional district boundaries.

New York’s efforts to finalize its political boundaries for the State Legislature entered a new phase last week. A Redistricting Commission – made up of equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans – released a proposed map for the New York State Assembly. This proposed map is set for public hearings over the next few months with legislative action to follow. The plan is for the new Assembly maps to be in place in time for the 2024 election.

We’ve prevented election deniers from overruling elections based only on the imagination of sore losers. Hallelujah. But things sometimes do go wrong which need to be corrected. Courts, quite properly, have ordered recounts after reviewing the evidence. Courts have also rewritten legislative district boundaries that violated one-person-per-vote or other state or federal constitutional rules. Those cases rest on evidence, not on someone’s imagination.

Americans made their way to the polls last week and collectively voted to keep the status quo, more or less. The U.S. Senate will remain in Democratic Party control with a razor thin majority; control of the House is still up for grabs. Whichever party ends up in the majority, that margin will also be small.

A redistricting crisis is now upon us. The new book, One Person, One Vote: A Surprising History of Gerrymandering in America, tells the history of how we got to this moment - from the Founding Fathers to today’s high-tech manipulation of election districts - and shows how to protect our most sacred, hard-fought principle of one person, one vote. Author and Professor Nick Seabrook joins us.

While lawmakers were seeking to wrap up the legislative session, a big issue has been percolating in the courts – how best to draw the new political boundaries for New York’s Congressional delegation and its state Senate.

Last week, Governor Hochul and New York’s political leaders agreed on new boundaries for Congressional and state legislative districts. The lines were drawn by the Legislature’s Democratic majorities and the upshot is likely to result in a big hit on the dwindling political clout of the state GOP.

It couldn’t be clearer that Republicans claim that Democrats rigged the 2020 election because they can’t imagine winning an election except by rigging it.…

Lawmakers return to Albany this week and both houses will be holding a joint hearing on the state’s redistricting process.Every ten years since 1790, the…