New York’s Democratic lawmakers didn’t get everything that they wanted out of this year’s redistricting mess, but they did achieve their underlying goal: Gov. Kathy Hochul and the Legislature, and not an independent commission, controlled how the boundary lines for the state’s congressional districts were drawn.
It wasn’t the egregious, unconstitutional gerrymander that the Dems attempted two years ago and was feared again this time around. Even the all-powerful Dems, who control every level of government in the state, knew they couldn’t get away with that one again.
But the redraw still gives the Dems an advantage in some seats that could help determine control of the House this fall.
Because that’s been the goal all along. The Dems have no threat to their totalitarian hegemony here in New York state.
But if Hochul and Dem state lawmakers can help the national party win back the House in November, it will help rinse the bitter taste of 2022 out of their mouths.
That’s when Republican congressional wins in New York state helped deliver the House to the GOP.
And we can’t have that happen again. Not when Donald Trump has a shot at getting elected president again.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way.
New Yorkers in 2014 voted to have an independent, bi-partisan commission, and not the state Legislature, draw congressional district lines.
It looked like a victory for good government. Because we all know that lawmakers of both parties are going to look after their own party’s vested interests when drawing all-important legislative district boundaries.
An independent commission would take at least some of the politics out of the process. At least we thought so.
But it hasn’t quite worked out that way.
In looking to draw the lines for the 2022 House races, the commission split evenly along party lines and couldn’t agree on a single set of maps. Two sets of maps were issued, which was like splitting the baby down the middle.
So Dem lawmakers tried to jam their own maps through. But they got stopped by the Court of Appeals. A special master ended up drawing the maps used in the 2022 races.
Those maps should have stayed in place until the next redistricting process following the 2030 census.
But the Dems couldn’t allow that.
They sued to open the process up again this year. And they put their partisan fingerprints all over it by drawing their own maps, even though the independent commission had this time approved new maps by a margin of 9-1.
It matters not that the Dem-drawn maps “weren’t all that bad” or “weren’t as bad as they could have been.”
Is that the low standard that we should all stoop to? Just because it wasn’t an outright gerrymandered rigging of the maps doesn’t make it right.
The fact is that the voters expressly didn’t want lawmakers drawing the maps. We wanted an independent panel to do it. Hochul and the legislature hijacked the process. They gave the back of their hands to the voters.
Or, as Democratic Senate Deputy Leaker Mike Gianaris, of Queens, put it, “We reasserted the right of the Legislature to be responsible for this important task and gave the people of the state a better map.”
If only the voters had wanted it that way.
And the Dems were successful in rigging the system so that any future GOP redistricting challenges will have to be heard only in courts in one of four Dem-favored counties.
And are no guarantees that the Dems won’t sue to redraw the maps yet again if the 2024 House elections don’t go their way, particularly if Trump is elected again.
Hochul, N.Y. Dems show contempt for voters by hijacking House redistricting process (opinion)
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1
02.03.2024
New York’s Democratic lawmakers didn’t get everything that they wanted out of this year’s redistricting mess, but they did achieve their underlying goal: Gov. Kathy Hochul and the Legislature, and not an independent commission, controlled how the boundary lines for the state’s congressional districts were drawn.
It wasn’t the egregious, unconstitutional gerrymander that the Dems attempted two years ago and was feared again this time around. Even the all-powerful Dems, who control every level of government in the state, knew they couldn’t get away with that one again.
But the redraw still gives the Dems an advantage in some seats that could help determine control of the House this fall.
Because that’s been the goal all along. The Dems have no threat to their totalitarian hegemony here in New York state.
But if Hochul and Dem state lawmakers can help the national party win back........
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