Some day a legislative leadership with a sense of humor will push through both houses resolutions calling for the abolition of their own legislative bodies and the speedy execution of the members.
If read in the usual mumbling tone by the clerk and voted on in the usual uninquiring manner, the resolution will be adopted unanimously.
Warren Moscow, Politics in the Empire State, Alfred A. Knopf 1948
Due to sustained public pressure, exercised in part by Progressive activists from NDM and DFNYC, both houses of the New York State legislature finally adopted, in early 2005, a somewhat watered-down version of the reform package proposed by the Brennan Center for Justice. However, these reforms have not sufficiently addressed the reform needs of this state.
The key to solving the lack of small-d democratic transparency is to abolish the incumbency protection racket that is the redistricting system. Presently, both houses of the legislature – Senate and Assembly – draw their own districts. Not surprisingly, given the seemingly permanent party majorities in both houses, this has led to an exquisite refinement in the art of gerrymandering; witness this map of City senate districts.
Note how the districts of republicans – Padavan (11), Maltese (15) and Golden (22) – snake around, literally from block to block, in an effort to capture as many friendly voters as possible. The exception to that rule is the 24th district, which is republican enough to dispense with the kind of electoral filigree that sustains the three others. Another notable example of partisan craft is the 31st district, represented by Eric Schneiderman, which was re-drawn by the Senate majority to make the district far less demographically friendly to the Senator.
The same methodology applies, needless to say, to the Assembly. In a very real way, this chicanery is illustrative of the larger ill that besets American democracy. For example, Democrats won 52% of the popular vote in House races in 2004, versus the republican's 44%; however, due to clever redistricting engineered in 2000 and later, the other side was able to expand its representation in the House.
Partisanship aside, it is not a good thing in a representative democracy when legislators don't need to worry about their re-election prospects, since that worry is directly tied to their responsiveness to the expressed will of their constituents. It's also arguably not a very productive way of doing business when a given natural community of interest – say, a neighborhood – is divided between several legislative districts. Take, for example, the blocks that abut the 19th, 21st, 22nd, 23rd, and 27th districts in Bay Ridge. It's difficult to see how that area can secure adequate representation and a voice in its own affairs, to put it mildly.
Democrats are already determined to make government reform a major issue in the 2006 state elections. Obviously, in a solidly blue state, this issue accrues to our partisan benefit. But that does not diminish the fact that it's also the right thing to do. New Yorkers deserve better than we're getting from Albany these days.
