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•NY Redistricting: Late on Wednesday night, Albany lawmakers passed the unholy legislative gerrymanders agreed upon by Democratic leaders in the Assembly and their Republican counterparts in the Senate. Indeed, Senate Democrats were so enraged that they stormed out of the chamberen masse, leading to a 36-0 vote in favor of the maps. (The four members of the so-called "Independent Democratic Conference" shamefully sided with the GOP: David Carlucci, Jeffrey Klein, Diane Savino, and David Valesky.)
Then on Thursday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo gave final testament to the fact that he spent a year lying to New Yorkers about his promise to reform the redistricting process and signed the maps into law. What did he get in exchange? The mere possibility that a deliberately crappy redistricting commission might come into effect a decade hence. In order for that to happen, the next legislature would have to pass the proposed constitutional amendment again—something they may well not bother to do, given that they already got what they wanted (their maps)—and then voters have to approve it in a referendum.
Hopefully they won't: SUNY New Paltz Prof. Gerry Benjamin, an expert on government process, rated the commission a "C-" on behalf of the Citizens’ Committee for an Effective Constitution (a good-government group) and said he'd vote against it himself. Cuomo also pushed the legislature to pass a statute that is identical to the amendment in case the amendment never happens... but of course, a statute can be undone by an act of the same legislature which passed it in the first place.
All in all, this is an extremely raw deal for New Yorkers, and for Democrats, this truly is the worst of all possible worlds. We gave up the ability to draw a congressional map, and we allowed the GOP to produce another outrageous gerrymander of the state Senate—in other words, worse than bupkes. If Cuomo had kept his word and vetoed any maps produced by the legislature, we'd be taking back the Senate this fall, guaranteed, and then we'd have an opportunity to re-do the congressional map next year.
But instead, Cuomo's for some reason in thrall to Republican Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, who appears to be his closest ideological soul-mate in Albany. It's absolutely disgusting, and if there's a singular villain who stands out above many others across the nation in this dismal season of redistricting, it's Andrew Cuomo. When he tries to run for president, don't forget this. (David Nir)
