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Redistricting

Barnyard Animals and Redistricting Reform

By Kahlil Williams – 03/21/07

*Cross-posted from ReformNY 

Back in high school, my father coached my AAU basketball team- a hodgepodge of players who were just good enough to get invited to tournaments, where we would then get manhandled by teams with actual talent. We had very little size, but we played solid, scrappy defense. Unfortunately, we didn't get a lot of rebounds. This incensed my dad, whose primary coaching tool was screaming "BOX!" (as in "box out") as loudly as possible, whenever a shot would go up.

One day, after a particularly disappointing game, he told us the story of some barnyard animals who avoided all of the tasks necessary to prepare a meal for themselves, yet they still wanted to partake in the feast. The protagonist, Henny Penny, would ask them all "Who will pick the grain?" or "Who will knead the dough?", and animals like Lucy Goosey and Turkey Lurkey would summarily reply, "Not I!" Henny Penny was left to do all of the work, but, predictably, the other animals were more than happy to dig in once it was time to eat. The goal of the story was to point out our team's reluctance to do the grunt work that needed to be done (i.e, rebounding), even though all of us wanted to reap the rewards of victory.

Enter Assemblywoman Barbara Lifton. Her guest column on redistricting in the Ithaca Journal illustrates how Henny Penny and Turkey Lurkey are sometimes the same creature. The beginning of her piece is in the Henny Penny mold, presenting some important considerations and questions for redistricting reform, including compliance with Voting Rights Act, respecting communities of interest, etc.

But these considerations begin to sound more like excuses that undermine reform as the article goes on. For instance, Lifton wonders aloud whether we could find non-partisans "who would be willing to take on the complex task" of redrawing the boundaries for New York's Congressional and state legislative districts, even though 2.3 million New Yorkers are not registered to any political party. And she struggles to understand how an independent commission might be structured (as if one must be adopted out of whole cloth) ignoring the fact that such commissions already exist elsewhere. In short, it's as if she's premptively saying "Not I!", a la Turkey Lurkey.

In fairness, I have no trouble with being cautious on redistricting reform; we should be wary of recreating the current structure that keeps the power to draw district lines, in essence, with the legislature. Similarly, we must ensure that minority communities get a fair shake. However, those who are facilitating the discussion should, at the very least, present redistricting reform as an issue with obstacles and substantial benefits, not simply highlighting the negatives. Had Henny Penny pitched the work as back-breaking labor to produce a meal that was "pedestrian" or "lacking inspiration", the story wouldn't make any sense. Who's going to give up a day of frolicking on the farm for that?

The Brennan Center salutes any and all who support meaningful and effective redistricting reform, including Assemblywoman Lipton. But we hope said supporters are converting more of our state's Turkey Lurkeys into Henny Pennys, and not the other way around.

Tags: Democracy, NY Reform, Redistricting

Hooray for…Albany?

By Kahlil Williams – 02/27/07

The lights in Hollywood shine a little bit brighter on Oscar night, but who knew how much light they would cast on New York? Notwithstanding NY native Martin Scorcese’s victories for Best Picture and Best Director, several parallels can be drawn between the Academy Awards and New York’s political process. The state legislature, like the Academy, has voting practices viewed by outsiders as mysterious, if not secretive. Reform efforts have been ushered stage-right like an Oscar winner who’s thanked a few too many people in a rambling speech. And the incumbency advantage of elected officials combined with their control of redistricting ensures that, like the awards show, that though the outfits change in the legislature, the people wearing them rarely do.

Eileen Markey’s article in City Limits alludes to another parallel. The majority of our state's prisoners come from downstate (New York City), but virtually all the state's prisons are upstate. More importantly, those prisoners are counted as "residents" of upstate towns in the decennial census, but they are unable to vote. Thus, for the purposes of reapportionment and redistricting in NY, prisoners are like seat fillers at the Oscars: they give districts the appearance of being full, but they have absolutely no clout.

This practice has meaningful economic and political consequences. The resources diverted to districts upstate do little to aid prisoners, while the actual residents get a disproportionately large slice of the pie. In turn, less money is directed to downstate districts that already lack resources and support returning prisoners upon their release. Politically, this method has favored Republicans, who are heavily concentrated upstate. By allocating prisoners up north, redistricters respecting one-person/one-vote doctrine must create more districts upstate; these puffed-up districts have tended to elect GOP candidates.

There are simple ways to change New York’s method of counting prisoners. Some states simply do not count prisoners when redistricting. Others, including Sen. Eric Schneiderman have proposed creating a database with the last known addresses of prisoners, and counting them there. Either proposal would bring more fairness to the system and help end the current practice in NY which heaps insult onto injury: not only are prisoners being used for partisan gain, but their home districts suffer as well. Or, put another way, not only are they little more than nominees with no chance at a statue, they're left without the coveted swag too.

Tags: Democracy, NY Reform, Redistricting