SUFFOLK CLOSEUP: Redistricting "They Did It Because They Thought They Could"

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

They did it because they could. And now New York State’s highest court said they shouldn’t have.

With Democratic majorities in both the State Assembly and State Senate, a redistricting plan—a map giving Democratic candidates an advantage in districts throughout the state and notably Long Island—was passed. And Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul signed off on it.

But last month, the state’s highest court, its Court of Appeals, by a 4-3 vote, rejected the plan. The court’s majority held that it was “substantially unconstitutional.” The mapping of Congressional districts in particularly was “drawn with impermissible partisan purpose.”

A “special court master”—Jonathan Cervas with the Institute for Politics and Strategy at Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania and an expert on redistricting—will redraw the map.

The plan by the Democratic majorities in the State Legislature was an extreme case of gerrymandering—the word coined for the redistricting done in 1812 under Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry with the “mander” for salamander—what one Massachusetts Senate district looked like. 

The New York plan involved multiple salamander-shaped districts.

For example, Suffolk’s lst Congressional District which long consisted of the five East End towns, all of Brookhaven and most of Smithtown, was to have GOP-leaning areas between Westhampton and East Quogue in Southampton eliminated. Left of Brookhaven would be only its northern half which has a substantial Democratic presence. Smithtown would be cherry-picked and include Democratic-inclined Commack. The district would then extend west into Islip and pull in heavily Democratic Brentwood, Central Islip and North Bay Shore. Further west it would take in the northern portion of Babylon Town, which votes reliably Democrat, and a southern part Huntington including Democratic-voting Dix Hills. Going yet further west, the lst C.D. would extent into the Democratic bastions of Plainview and Bethpage—in Nassau County. 

“Preservation of communities of interest” is considered important when it comes to redistricting which is done to reflect population changes after the national census every decade. 

But in the New York plan, in the lst C.D. and other districts, communities were combined not to represent common interests but for Democratic political advantage.

Gerrymandering based on the 2020 census wasn’t just a New York Democratic move but happened elsewhere in the U.S. and involved both Democratic and Republican Parties.  

The media watch group Fairness and Accuracy in Media features an article exploring this in the current issue of its monthly newsletter Extra! The piece, by Dorothee Benz, quoted USA Today as connecting gerrymandering to “increasing polarization,” “gridlock,” and “an even more divisive Congress.” It cited the concern of The New York Times about gerrymandering causing a “lack of competition in general elections” which “can widen the ideological gulf between parties.”

This is because of “uncompetitive districts—that is, one-party districts,” wrote Benz. 

She reported that “the percentage of competitive districts in Congress is set to shrink from an already appalling 17% after the 2010 redistricting to a truly deplorable 9% after the 2020 redistricting.” She quoted USA Today stating uncompetitive districts are “driving the lack of action on issues that a lot of Americans really care about.”

Other recent gerrymandered redistricting moves, she noted, included in Ohio where Republicans “redrew congressional maps in a way that turned 64% of them into safe Republican districts.” That plan was struck down by the Supreme Court of Ohio.

In New York, the gerrymandering and its judicial rejection will necessitate having two primaries—one in June, one in August—at a multi-million-dollar additional cost.  

There are a number of organizations that have long sought reform in redistricting. A leader in New York has been its League of Women Voters which entered a “friend of the court” brief in the challenge to the state plan. It declared: “This appeal raises a question of monumental importance: whether the courts will enforce the procedural requirements adopted by the people in the New York Constitution to prevent partisan gerrymandering…”

Karl Grossman is a veteran investigative reporter and columnist, the winner of numerous awards for his work and a member of the L.I. Journalism Hall of Fame. He is a professor of journalism at SUNY/College at Old Westbury and the author of six books.