Federal Judge Seizes Congressional Redistricting (NYS)

[brooklynite]

Albany Times-Union:

BROOKLYN — A panel of state legislators has dithered for 11 months, so a federal magistrate will draw lines for 27 congressional districts in two weeks.

A three-judge panel named U.S. Magistrate Roanne Mann as special master over New York’s once-a-decade redistricting process during a hearing Monday afternoon. When attorneys representing Democrats who dominate the Assembly and Republicans who hold a bare majority in the Senate acknowledged they had no agreement through a joint task force, called LATFOR, that is tasked with drawing the congressional lines, Mann ordered they develop their own proposals by Wednesday.

She will hear objections on those proposals by Friday and said another hearing would be scheduled sometime early next week. For now, Mann’s authority is restricted to congressional lines, despite a push by Senate Democrats that she also supervise the drawing of state legislative lines.

...snip...

The federal court’s involvement in the redistricting process should lift congressional redistricting from a quagmire of partisan disagreement where it has festered for over a year — just as it has for the past four decades. LATFOR’s process has been roundly decried by good-government advocates and Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who has vowed to veto lines not drawn by an independent commission.

Reportedly, the Democratic Assembly is paralyzed by a squabble between the Bronx and Manhattan Party leaders over the lines for Charlie Rangel's district, and won't consider anything else until that's resolved.

[hedgehog]

1. As a New Yorker, let me just

[brooklynite]

2. I've heard some groups say this "wins the battle but loses the war..."

The Courts deal with the effect (no districts) but not the cause (Legislative gerrymandering). It fixes the lines for now, but doesn't change the underlying process in the future.

[hedgehog]

3. Right now Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse are chopped up into congressional

districts covering several rural counties to ensure that the Democratic vote gets diluted by Republicans. My family lives in a northern Buffalo suburb, but their congressional district reaches into Cayuga County. I live north of Syracuse, but if I moved 10 miles west, i'd be in their district!

[GiveMeFreedom]

4. when I saw the word LATFOR

My mind immediately changed it to LAFTOR.

[Nye Bevan]

5. All redistricting should be done by an independent, non-political committee

Districts should be based upon population and natural community boundaries. Not gerrymandered monstrosities.