NY State Senate

It seems that a couple of days ago the Republican Party's majority in the New York State Senate got cut to just one seat. The significance of this may escape non-locals, but the basic deal is that the New York legislature is horribly gerrymandered so as to make it very, very, very difficult for Democrats to get a majority in the State Senate even though it's a very Democratic state. This state of affairs is part of a tawdry implicit bargain between the Democratic Assembly leader and the Republican Senate leader, whereby the two of them essentially rule the state through backdoor deals irrespective of public opinion and the outcome of gubernatorial elections.

Meanwhile, it has the effect of giving the Republicans a big say in the congressional districting process in a heavily Democratic state. Given the underlying distribution of actual voters in the state, were the Democrats to seize control of the Senate district boundaries would be drawn to produce a couple of new House Democrats plus the State Senate lines would be redone in such a way as to make a GOP comeback unlikely.

Comments

It the proposal that New York would be better off as a one party state? What state policies or programs would change when NY becomes a one party state?

Posted by superdestroyer | February 28, 2008 8:59 AM

A map can be found here.

Mind you, New York State Democrats stand for nothing other than winning by enormous majorities. Spitzer is an authoritarian in the mold of Giuliani. I won't even discuss Clinton.

New Jersey apparently is the place where Democrats actually stand for something progressive and enact it.

Posted by SavageView | February 28, 2008 9:02 AM

Very good news for gays in NY, as gay marriage was introduced by Governor Spitzer and has already passed in the state legislature. It may be passed in the state senate in a short time if this keeps up.

Posted by George | February 28, 2008 9:05 AM

were the Democrats to seize control of the Senate district boundaries would be drawn to produce a couple of new House Democrats plus the State Senate lines would be redone in such a way as to make a GOP comeback unlikely

Didn't we complain bitterly when the Rs did this in Texas? Weren't we claiming that it's only legitimate to redraw boundaries after a census, not every time a majority can be assembled in the Legislature to redraw the boundaries? If a pack of R state senators were to go in hiding in New Jersey next year, should President Obama's Homeland Security Department help locate them so they can be forced to return and form a quorum?

Posted by rea | February 28, 2008 9:08 AM

Rea - census is coming up. I think the idea is that this will impact the 2010 redistricting, not a mid-census redistricting.

Posted by John | February 28, 2008 9:14 AM

Superdestroyer, I think the proposal is that the House delegation and state senate should reflect the partisan makeup of the people of New York State rather than being overlarded with Republicans because of gerrymandering.

Posted by KCinDC | February 28, 2008 9:33 AM

Matt, I don't use the word "hero" very often, but if you just dedicated your blog to attacking Shelly Silver and Joe Bruno, and were successful in stopping their power, you'd be the greatest hero in American history.

Posted by Sam | February 28, 2008 9:37 AM

Part of the problem is that Bruno and Silver protect each other's legislative turf. Knock out Bruno in the Senate and we might get a progressive Assembly Speaker too, eventually.

Posted by phil | February 28, 2008 9:43 AM

It the proposal that New York would be better off as a one party state?

I, for one, am looking forward to Elliot Spitzer outlawing other political parties. After all, as a liberal democrat he is uniquely susceptible to the totalitarian temptation, and we liberals could really use some sweet gerrymandered lebensraum!

Posted by DMonteith | February 28, 2008 9:45 AM

That Dem win was also in a heavily Republican district (78k-47k registration advantage), which is pretty remarkable and bodes well for the Dems to pickup at least the extra seat they need this November.

The best thing to happen to this State would be to get Joe Bruno out of power. He's stood in the way of progress far too long. Of course, having the Dems in control is no guarantee of better policies, but having that troglodyte Bruno in charge is a guarantee of not having them.

I look for some smart Republican to switch soon. Now that it's one seat -- and things look pretty good for a Dem takeover anyway in November -- time to make the switch while you can still get something for it.

Posted by Glenn | February 28, 2008 9:45 AM

SavageView, thanks for the link to the State Senate district maps. I just looked at some of the districts, and it proves that Matt is not exaggerating when he calls them "horribly gerrymandered." I had no idea. How long has it been like this? Did Nelson Rockefeller have something to do with creating this system?

Posted by Hal | February 28, 2008 9:47 AM

were the Democrats to seize control of the Senate district boundaries would be drawn to produce a couple of new House Democrats

Perhaps, although you should be aware that NY is likely to lose a couple of seats in the upcoming reapportionment. Accordingly, it may just be that the Democrats will just be able to hang on to the same number of Congressional districts they have now, rather than increasing their number, in NY. Moreover, the NY Congressional delegation is already 23-6, and likely to be 24-5 given Jim Walsh's retirement, so I'm not sure how much more the Democrats can squeeze out of the state.

Posted by Al | February 28, 2008 9:59 AM

Hal: Bruno draws the Senate map and Silver draws the Assembly map. It's a mutual protection pact.

It's even worse than the map looks, because the population disparities between the Republican Senate districts upstate and their corresponding Democratic ones in the city are as big as the Supreme Court possibly allows. ("One man, one vote" doesn't apply as stringently on the state level as on the federal level.) And that's with (state) unconstitutionally counting disenfranchised downstate prisoners housed in upstate prisons towards upstate population totals instead of towards their home districts, so the population disparities are even bigger than they look.

With the demographic shifts in New York what they are (upstate is bleeding population, whereas the city's actually growing), it's not clear that the Republicans would manage to pull off another successful gerrymander this cycle anyway. Here's to hoping they don't even get to try.

Posted by phil | February 28, 2008 10:13 AM

There's been talk of Spitzer trying to encourage one of the GOP state senators to flip. Alternatively, he can give one a job and open a seat up.

Posted by Ronnie Pudding | February 28, 2008 10:15 AM

I don't know why the Republicans are against affirmative action. It's what keeps them in office in so many of these gerrymandered states.

As the saying goes, they were born on 3rd base and think they hit a triple.

Posted by leo | February 28, 2008 10:21 AM

I know it is as likely to happen as the end of farm subsidies, but it is trivial to come up with a nice fair system to create districts. Why don't we ever do that?

Posted by Sebastian | February 28, 2008 11:32 AM

Matt, I don't use the word "hero" very often, but if you just dedicated your blog to attacking Shelly Silver and Joe Bruno, and were successful in stopping their power, you'd be the greatest hero in American history.

Amen.

Posted by Exile on Ericsson St. | February 28, 2008 2:29 PM

MESSAGE

Posted by ISHMAel back | March 5, 2008 12:17 PM

MESSAGE

Posted by ISHMAel back | March 5, 2008 12:17 PM

MESSAGE

Posted by ISHMAel back | March 5, 2008 12:17 PM

MESSAGE

Posted by ISHMAel back | March 5, 2008 12:17 PM

MESSAGE

Posted by ISHMAel back | March 5, 2008 12:17 PM