The redistricting process has a reputation for being a tough road to hoe in Albany County, where legislators recently voted down an independently redrawn map.
Albany County was sued for violations of the Voting Rights Act after each of the last three U.S. Censuses. It was alleged that redrawn districts were not properly adjusted in accordance with Census findings regarding relative population growth and shifts as to ensure fair representation for each resident.
An independent redistricting commission created in 2019 has been working with a majority-minority district subcommittee to redraw lines in a bid to avoid more lawsuits. A so-called "final draft" map was issued in June. This month, legislators voted down the redrawn lines.
Legislative Deputy Chair Wanda Willingham, a Democrat and a founding member of the Legislative Black Caucus, says politics will always be part of the redistricting process.
"There's a lot of legalese involved in, you know, the Voting Rights Act and trying to ensure that one vote for, you know, every man," said Willingham. "When it comes to these, let's say, just now we're trying to do something as far as like commission is concerned, when you have people who may not have the expertise or the understanding of what representation is all about, that can cause a huge problem. So when you start to take the numbers from the census, to divide up where people are, you know, there's a lot of things you got to ensure. One that you don't pack all the people in the one area, and then they would wind up with less representation, because you put them all in one spot. Or you don't divide them up in such a way that the other side, whether it's Republicans, or in our case, whether it's people of color against, you know, white people, where you put them in a greater number of white people where their vote won't count. And so that they would wind up electing a person that doesn't look like them into office.”
The Albany County Legislature is one of the largest in the state, with 39 members, and it drew headlines when Democrat Sam Fein – who is white – won the minority-majority sixth district in 2015. He thinks the commission's redrawn map was flawed.
“They made some key mistakes," said Fein. "And you know, in an effort to increase I think they wanted, they thought it was a good idea to increase the number of majority-minority districts from five to seven. But in doing so what they did was basically create very weak majority-minority districts where the Black population in many cases is only around 40%. And in some cases, when you combine both the Black and Hispanic population, it's still below 50%. So it’s not a majority, actually, just a plurality. So, you know, it's not an easy thing to get right. This is why our process has the ability for the legislature to vote it down and send it back to them. You know, we want an independent process. But we also want to have some oversight of it if we feel that it's not meeting the standard.”
All nine Republican legislators voted for the new map. Frank Mauriello is Minority Leader of the Republican Conference.
“Everybody has a different opinion," Mauriello said. "And every legislator I think, was impacted in one way or another. And I feel that the majority-minority group in the city, they weren't happy with the way the districts were drawn. And they felt that there were too many minor majority-minority districts. And they felt that, you know, they would be watered down. And there were five solid districts, as we call them, MMD districts, and two that were probably MMD districts but not solid. And they didn't like that. They just felt it was too watered down.”
Democratic County Legislature Chair Andrew Joyce defends the commission.
“We appointed, you know, really qualified, compassionate, you know, public service-minded people who then filled out the rest of the commission, they did excellent work," Joyce said. "But at this point of the process, you know, per the local law that we passed, that kind of guides the process, we've had input from the public and input from the legislature. Based on how we go forward, the process has run very well. The only thing I would say about the process is the effect the pandemic has had on the Census and getting the data in a timely manner, and just kind of coming out of the pandemic and making sure that we're going in the right direction with the timeline. But that has nothing to do with us or the commission. It’s just the constraints being placed on us that exists already. But we're excited to move through the process and approve a map that's created by the commission, not by politicians.”
For the commission, it's back to the drawing board. Mauriello expects another public hearing on redistricting will be held in mid to late November.
