Cuny Forum; Politics in the Empire State: Redistricting Reform in New York?

Good evening, my name is Bob Liff, and this is the CUNY Forum, a monthly town meeting that brings prominent New Yorkers together, with faculty and students at the Edwatie Wrigowski Internship Program in Government and Public Affairs. When I covered City Hall for New York News Day many years ago, my bureau chief Bill Murphy had a wonderful description of Mayor Ed Koch, saying he was unavoidable for comment. Now he is 86 years old, and Koch is not yet ready to go away, and in fact, is set opening on its ear with his New York Uprising Reform campaign, which includes calls to institute nonpartisan redistricting for assembly and senate districts, instead of the current system in which each chamber draws its own lines to the benefit of its incumbents. Koch has the radical idea that voters should pick their representatives instead of representatives picking their voters.

Now Governor Cuomo is introduced legislation to codify the proposal by establishing a nonpartisan or at least bipartisan redistricting commission that excludes recent lawmakers, government staffers, and lobbyists, all categories of people who have been called upon after past censuses to carry water for the respective majorities in each chamber. Who could be against such a fair, reasonable, seemingly non-controversial idea? Well, nowhere, the civics and politics collide with more of a thud than in drawing district lines, both for the legislature and for Congress, which is made more complicated this year because New York is losing two of our seats in Washington as a result of the census. There are, as always, at Albany, and at politics in general, games within games. Only Speaker Sheldon Silver, who last year refused to sign Koch's pledge, has introduced a measure to carry out Cuomo's plan. Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Dean Skellow, so a Republican who knows a popular issue when he sees one, made sure that every Republican senator signed on to conscious plan, but now he's in no hurry to carry it out.

Maybe Skellows and Silver know how to count. Seems to me that Democrats are awfully short-sighted if they don't grab on to any proposal for fair redistricting. The power of mapmakers is apparent in that the same 19 million people in New York State can be carved up to create a 60-seat Democratic majority in the state- and the state assembling, but a two-seat Republican majority in the state Senate. Senator Michael, Senator Michael Gianaris, a Democrat, noted that Democratic state Senate candidates got 250,000 more votes than Republicans in the last election, but because of how the lines were drawn, overwhelmingly Democratic districts versus districts, where Republicans had smaller but still safe majorities, the Republicans were able to take the chamber back from the Democrats. We're joined by four New Yorkers with a variety of views on this decennial collision of civics and politics. Ed Sullivan is a former Assemblyman who went through two redistrictings. It is district-based in the morning side heights, and was my Assemblyman. Ms. Moralda Simmons is the Executive Director of the Medgar Evers Center for Law and Social

Justice, who sat on the District Commission that redrew city council lines. Angelo Falcone is the founder and director of the National Institute for Latino Policy, and Michael Aronson is a member of the Daily News editorial board, which has been a leading voice and calling for Albany reform. Michael, the board has been very vocal in support of what Cottis trying to do and basically trying to clean up Albany, is what Ed is doing a good idea, and are you surprised at what happened today? Well, last week, Cottis went up to Albany to meet with the Skelos and the other members, and I don't know why he was surprised, but Skelos turned on them. As you said, in your opening, Skelos and all the Republicans said, we support this. We support this plan, vote for us, put us in power, they did, and now it came time, okay. Are you going to carry through? And he said, I want to do the budget.

Are you going to carry through? Well, there were a lot of plans. You're going to carry through. Well, we could change and say constitution and fix it in ten years. And Cottis basically said he was a liar. He didn't say pants on fire. He said he would say a liar, a liar, a pants on fire. Right. And the question is, is this Skelos going to move? It's not in Skelos' interest, okay? We can get into this discussion later. The state has several million more enrolled Democrats than Republicans. The Democrats have won statewide elections for president year after year, every four years, for governor, for attorney general, for U.S. Senate. There are more Democrats in the state to Republicans than Democrats said to do better. So if the lines are drawn fairly, the expectation would be that the Democrats would control the Senate. Well, the lines have not been drawn fairly. For 50, 60 years, the Republicans in the Senate and the Democrats on the other side drew the lines in a crooked fashion to favor their party.

And if the lines are drawn fairly in the Democrats, would they have 100 seats? Probably not. Maybe they've had 90 seats. Still, they'd have a large majority. So that's why Skelos said he would do it to win election, and that's why he's not doing it because it's not in his interest, and he's afraid that he'll lose and he'll be out of power. Ed, you were an assemblyman for 26 years. You went through two redistricties. Okay, three. Three. And how conscious of you were you of protecting your seat in particular in the past? Well, there were several things that you wanted. Of course, you want to protect your seat. I mean, you want to continue with this work. Yes, you want to continue with this work. But to what lengths are you going to go to the fact that what I, in the last redistricting, I was asked what I thought was should be done either in the morning side heights. I said, there is a place called Morning Side Heights where carved up in the city council, where carved up in the Congress, where carved up in the state Senate. I'm in the assembly, right?

I was. I don't want it carved up. I think we have an integral community and we should be a community in towns of state. The rules have generally been that you don't cut a town in half. Why is it that a community in New York City can be cut in half rather casually? So I said, if you cut me in half, you're going to get two unsolvers on your neck and that didn't want that idea very much. And so I, through that thread, I was able to keep it. Intrable. Now, here's the trick. You've got certain rules. It's got to be one damn one vote. All the districts have to be more or less the same size. And therefore, since we don't have 125,000 or 126,000 people in Morning Side Heights, we have to attach places from other sections to our district. So what's good for Morning Side Heights, in this case, turned out to be not so good for some of the people in some of the border areas of other districts.

And that's the reality, and no matter who draws the lines, that's going to be a reality. As we're all keeping communities together as a priority, there is the Voting Rights Act is determines how you can draw certain lines in terms of not breaking up racial restrictions to deny what is to deny minority communities to write to elect people of their own choice, whatever that particular legal language is. We're looking at what Koch is doing and what the priorities of what the governor has said, which basically says to try to keep communities together. Is this too complicated to process them to meet all those priorities? No, it's not too complicated to process, but I don't want anyone to think that composing a new commission, independent quote, I'm going to put big quotes about independent commission, really changes the game that much. I think independent commissions are great, but I don't think that they're all that independent.

I've sat on independent commissions in New York City, and I can tell you they were messages flying from city hall over, et cetera, some people were listening intently and others like myself were deaf to those things. I'm a voting rights attorney, and I work to make sure that people in this state, and particularly my constituents, which are the black citizens and the black residents of New York state, get their fair share, fair share. When you have an independent commission, all I'm laying out there, and I've read the Governor's proposal, which has now been, quote, adopted by the speaker, all I have to say is, somebody has to appoint. I know that they tried to shield the appointment process, but even in their shielding of the appointment process, somebody has to appoint the independent commission, and then you have to have that commission basically put on blinders, you know, be like the three monkeys

here, no, speak no, see no, in order to keep those people, quote, independent. I haven't seen too many human beings interested in that process. I think it's a better process than what we have now, but I don't really think that it's going to wind up being that independent. I would love to be proven wrong. The other thing I think is very, very interesting is that, and it does have very good provisions, I'm talking about the bill, provisions in terms of respecting the right, quote, racial minority voters. What I am most concerned about is that the redistricting is done on time, not delayed because people are arguing about how it's going to occur, what the process is going to be, whether it's the current slash independent commission, which is an independent at all, which is run by the legislature as the Constitution required, or independent commission

would then give the legislature something to vote on, I am most concerned that we come up with plans from the state so that we can begin the process, the long litigation process of coming out with actually a plan that will be ready to be voted on by September of 2012. Angelo, because of the nature of ethnic politics in this city, particularly, as well as talking about the black community you've been active through the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, a lot of other groups in kind of empowering Latinos to that they're not split up. You get a sense that now that you've got a seat at the table, that they're changing the rules. Well, I mean, one of the problems I have in getting involved with redistricting is the results. You know, one of the most popular things I say when I talk to Latino audiences is I go up and I say, you know, big problem we have is all these Latino politicians that

elected officials. They're all a bunch of crooks. I got a standing ovation. It's like a cheap shop, but, you know, you got to do what you have to do to get an outstanding ovation, but one of the things the outcome of this whole process is one that has a Latino community created tremendous amount of cynicism when you look at the number of people that are indicted, that are in jail. So one of the problems we have is, you know, yeah, so we have some Latinos now. We have Latino co-chair of the Senate part of the redistricting Commission, but, you know, I think in the Latino community, I think in other communities, people looking beyond just the ethnicity of the person, looking at the quality of the leadership. So that's one of the, I think, problems that we have now, I have no problems with many of the reforms that are being proposed in the Cuomo, you know, Bill, I just object to the, using the term independent commission because I think it's misleading. I mean, ultimately, according to state constitution, it's a legislature that has to vote on these things.

I mean, they get three shots in the proposal. Right. So you give it to the legislature, they can't make any amendment to it. Third time, you know, they can make changes. And then there's all sorts of things that happen in between, I think, as I'm out there. Those are provisions of the bill that they can present a plan, a legislature to vote up or down with no changes, they can present a second plan, up or down. I have a third time, you can amend it. You know, I've made them out. Yeah. And as, so ultimately, the legislature, you know, votes on this thing. So it's not really independent. And then secondly, I think there's issues as well to mention, we have the experience of working with an independent commission in New York City. You know, after this stuff is over, all this craziness, you go to redistricting the City Council. And there's an independent commission there. Well, we've had first having experience with how independent it is, she mentioned, you know, the kind of informal kind of communications between these independent commissioners and the political people behind them, you know, it comes problematic. Now the thing is that I think there are a lot of good reforms in there. And so I would have been more comfortable, it was people who said, look, I have a proposal

to reform the process and make it more responsive. That's it. But I hate the idea of using the term independent because I think it kind of lets the legislature off the hook. It gives the impression that they have nothing to do with this thing when that's not the case. Maybe if you take away the word independent. And just call it bipartisan because, you know, it's also as the audience, either here or watching at home has to understand, the New York legislature is the worst in the world. I don't know if this is a little world. If I can finish bars and as someone who served there for 26 years, you know, I'm sure you could have lots of experience, it is completely undemocratic, anything you've ever learned in a specific class about how bills become laws, how legislators work, none of it works. The committees are fake. Well, the schools don't teach that stuff anyway, so there's not a joke, okay? That the hearings are fake, the committee chairmanship are fake, it's a two-man operation.

In the assembly, and the assembly, there's a gentleman named Sheldon Silver, he represents one district downtown Manhattan. He managed to convince a hundred other Democrats to make him the speaker, so they voted for him. And he catered to those hundred Democrats. The 50 Republicans get lost, doesn't matter. If you're a Republican in the state assembly, and a third of the state, 18 million people live in the assembly Republican districts, they don't exist, they don't get legislation through, they don't get assistance to a nonprofit group, they don't get anything, they don't even get pencils, okay? In the state Senate, it's much closer, it's about 62 members, and it's 32-30. Two years ago, the Democrats had 32, and they completely oppressed and obliterated the Republicans, and now the Republicans come back, and they have 32, and the Democrats are out. All the Democratic staff was fired because their budget was wiped out, they have no authority.

The way it's done in Albany is the ruling side draws the lines. So Mr. Silver and his computers draw the lines. They take a community like Bay Ridge and Brooklyn, which is relatively conservative, and guys like John McCain do well there. The state Senate, Alexa Republican, the city council, had a Republican there, and they take that relatively homogenous conservative district, heavily Catholic, and they cut it up at the five districts to make sure that a Republican cannot be elected, and they achieve what they want. They elect only Democrats in that district, and you multiply that across the state, and in fact, the districts are not the same size, they are allowed to have a 5% variance. Not under the Cuomo bill. Under the way, it's been in New York, so you take 150 people, you divide the state, and then you start moving down. Mr. Silver's district is the smallest in the state in terms of population, because he wants as few as people in his districts as possible.

But the Republican districts are all the largest ones, so his is 4.9% smaller than the average, and the Republicans ones are all 4.9% larger, a 10% variation. That's just in the assembly though. That's in the assembly. In the senate, it's the same thing. And so what they've done is they've drawn the lines, as Bobson is opening, so that the elected people select their voters. I'm picking who I'm going to represent, as opposed to the voters every two years picking their representatives. So what this nonpartisan plan or bipartisan would give the oppressed minority, and I'm talking political minority, Republican or Democrat, a say. So Mr. Silver won't be able to draw the lines, you know, by his own whim. And Mr. Skelos in the senate won't be able to draw the lines under this plan. Why not? Because because he, because he, what he does is he wipes out the other side, and half the people in the state-

I understand it would get more really, isn't it? I realize the moral reason, but why do you think that he's not going to let the thing go to the two phony regions, and then go to the place where they're able to make amendments to the bill, and make the amendments that he wants to make, and then, and then don't pass it and be the same. No, no, no, no, no. Then it won't pass. Then we will all march over the federal court, the court will appoint a lawyer as a master, and then we will do this project for all of our own voting. And so that's all going away. Thank you. All over again, and in the end, three judges, three federal judges will decide what the district's are. But there is, that's what's going to have to take the work that was started by the commission. These experts say, it is explicit in the governor's proposal that neither political party, nor protecting incumbents, can be, if I remember reading it, it can be a priority in deciding how you draw the law.

My problem, my problem is, it reforms are needed, see a lot of things that can be done to make the process better. I just don't like the idea of overselling it. Overselling what this bill can do, the way you laid it out, right, it sounds like this thing is going to revolutionize it. What's not? Number two, it's the issue that, it's not a silver bullet, it's part of a, it's part of a broader, it's part of a, no, no, no, no, let's try, but I'm just saying that I think has to be put in as a sort of perspective. The other thing is that it's not a silver bullet. There are other processes involved, you know, in the Latino community, for example, one of the concerns we've had increasingly is the unresponsiveness of a democratic party period to the community. So within this process, the parties don't go away, you know, they're very much active in this process. So part of the problem is that there's a lot more, when we talk to folks in Latino community about getting our community organized, making sure we're at the table on these issues, dealing with other issues like campaign finance, all sorts of other things as well, and dealing with the ethics problem that we have obviously. So the thing is, what I find in what every 10 years when we do this, sometimes people

are going to argue what the impact is going to be, and I think that's the danger, and what, like I said, about the independence part of it, I think we still have to hold these guys accountable. The public needs to know that these guys are still, whether it's in front of, or behind the scenes, these are the guys that are manipulating the system as much as they can, what you're trying to do is ameliorate the problem so that they do as least damage. And it doesn't work. The seat that I first got, at that time called the 70th Assembly District, was drawn by the Justice Department of, who's the President before, Jimmy Carter, Ford, Justin, well, they drew the lines in order to make a black seat as they called it, right? So what happened? As soon as the lines were redrawn, they had an election, a white person running the first time, and I wanted it the second time, I mean, it doesn't work, it just doesn't work. And that was a non, I mean, they weren't doing it to favor the Democrats in New York City.

Do you think that, do you think, setting aside if it's real, well, do you think it's realistic? Do you think it's desirable, not to use protection, not to have protecting incumbents as a preference, or to have political party as a preference in how you draw those wrongs? You're asking the question, is self-interest, should self-interest be a part of politics? No, no, of course it shouldn't, but it is, as it is a part of business and a part of education or everything else. I mean, but isn't this precisely, because you have a self-interest, you as a category of people, not you personally, because you have that self-interest, it's an attempt to shield from that self-interest. Let me make a suggestion. Why not have a blue ribbon commission, how I hate that name, but anyway, let's call it a blue. A blue, okay, a green ribbon commission. But have them come up and be the, you know, you name them the best thing. Ed Koch, of course, has got to be on it, calm a call, you know, get the gang on there, right?

And have the only thing about redistricting. And have them, please, though. And have them go up with the law. And then have the legislature pass it if they think they want to, in defiance of that commission. And then we have a battle. Then we have politics. But they can be like that. But they can be like that. I mean, shall we silver can appoint Ed Koch if he wants to the commission? Yes. Now, over the years, over the years, at the Daily News, we have all, all types of politicians coming to talk to us. And something just stuck in my mind for years. Jerry Nadler, who was a very liberal congressman from West Side of Manhattan in Brooklyn. He's been in the Congress since 1992, before that, for like 15, 20 years, he was in the assembly. I asked him 10 years ago, he said, how do you fix Albany? And he gave me an answer. John Faso. I don't know if you know him, but he was the guy, unfortunately, for him, who ran against Elliot Spitzer, and then Spitzer, later resigned. And four years before, he ran against Alan Hevesy, and Hevesy was the one that we dissed in commission.

So he lost the two guys who later got into a lot of trouble. He was in the assembly for a long time from upstate conservative Republican, and he was the leader there. And I asked him, how do you fix Albany? Here's a part, no prompting. The answer immediately from Nadler, a Democrat, was fair redistricting. Faso gave the same answer, because you said that the people need to be held accountable, the legislators. Well, they're accountable at election time, but they're only accountable if they could be challenged. And if Mr. Silver and his friends and the Mr. Skelos has drawn the district in such a way that you're picking your voters, so you can never be defeated in your district. You can then rob and cheat and steal and lie for two years, and then it's election time and you're impregnable because you can't be defeated. And if the district is fair, then when it's accountability time, and if you're over the 18 and you're a citizen, you can go in and vote, you can throw the bombs out, but

you have to have a chance for someone else to compete against them. And so it goes back to accountability, and the election where the Democrats took over the state Senate four years ago, when they... Who drew those lines? The Bruno line. The Republicans drew the lines, and you have to Democrats won. Well, the thing is, I think, I'm not in disagreement with what you're saying, the thing about overselling it is the thing I'm concerned about, because I think we need more transparency. We need to have ways that you make the thing as transparent as possible, and you have to have community participation. The other problem with this process, it becomes very technical, and all a small number of people in the election. Right. One guy in a room with a computer. Right. Three guys. Three guys. I mean, the process is a really cynical one in Albany, right? Every ten years, what they would do in the past is they would bring the legislators in one by one, and cut a deal with them in terms of their maps, and by the way, the state also, legislature also does the congressional redistricting.

That's not a federal thing. So they bring the Congress people in it and say, look, this is what we're going to give you, take it or leave it or whatever, and deal with that. So it's a very nasty process. It's a very nasty process. But how do you get community participation so that, in fact, you hold people accountable and get them involved? How do you have the kind of transparency where people actually see what's going on? How do you empower other players so that they can also draw maps and access to data? And those are the kinds of things that I think help the process in opening it up. My concern is that, again, I don't want to oversell the process in the sense of, you know, it's going to be a struggle because ultimately, until you have a constitutional, you know, a change where you actually can have a commission that is not controlled at all, is not connected to the legislators, you're not going to have the kind of independence you really need. And there are other states that California and others that have that. So this is not my argument, I'm not doing a skill, so I'm going to say, let's put it off. There are reforms that we can make now to try to deal with the issues you're talking

about. But I think we have to be realistic about it and also look at the other aspects of the political process as well. I'm most concerned about, and I think I'm going to echo something that Angela said. All these are maps, granted, a lot of exaggeration in your report about how messy it is, but it's such a big mess that we let's just write it off as a mess. The real question we're talking about is why we even concerned about opening what concerned about orbiting because we're interested in whether there is a democracy in New York state. The truth of it is that the election laws, the election laws make sure there's no democracy, we just think make sure there's no democracy, the campaign rules make sure there's no democracy, the lobbyists make sure there's no democracy, the courts special interests make sure there's no democracy, there's a Supreme Court make sure there's no democracy cooperation of persons. So redistricting is not the cure or it's a piece, it's a piece, it's a piece, when we, it's not a piece, it's been time for that, but it is not, let me finish, it's every time you finish.

I know, I've been doing this for 40 years, I'm not kidding, this is my fourth redistricting. I know this process. Let me tell you, when we change redistricting and we will change it. When we get more community involvement, we will start changing the other things that are wrong with Albany and the major thing that's wrong with Albany is that the people have no real say in what happens in Albany. That's what's wrong. It is not a representative democracy, but neither is Congress, so let's just be clear. What about Saudi Arabia, would you call that a representative? No, absolutely not, but let's not start comparing because it might start getting a little cut and uncomfortable in here. As your point, the same, I would say, crooked legislature that drew the districts, also drew the congressional districts, and this year something interesting happened, five incumbent New York congressman lost. Now more than any other state in the union, fellow in Staten Island lost, someone in Hudson

Valley, a couple upstate. Now maybe they were freshmen and it was about Washington and whether they liked Obama, they didn't like Obama or Republicans, but there, the voters had the final say. They said, Mr. Congressman, you're out, new guy, you're in. And for the most part, the legislature has drawn their districts to be much safer because the districts are smaller. And when you said that there's the lack of democracy, why does that matter? Because Albany runs the state, do you think about the city council in the mayor? Forget it, everything comes out of Albany, the taxes, the education, health care, funding for CUNY, funding for everything, the tax structure, the state, everything comes out of Albany. What the mayor tries to do is work within those rules, the city council work within those rules, and that the foundational laws of New York City all come out of Albany. So if the fundamental problem is there's no democracy, because the elections are fake,

and the districts are fake, and the legislatures fake, and there's no recourse for the people to express what they want. And that's the whole concept of a representative system. So I think we're in that, we're in that, we're going to be separated on, yeah. Governor Jerry, after which Jerry Mandarin. Eldridge, Jerry, the Massachusetts, 1820, since that time, almost every state, because some states do have other means of redistricting. Almost every state, Jerry Manders, they're legislature, and Jerry Manders, they're congressional seats. And on it's gone for what would that be almost 200 years now, 190 years. And you know what, they go some party back here, back to here, back to here, back to here. The Republican Party came to birth during that time. You know, it was no Republican Party that time, and we have had, over this period of time, the most vibrant, the most productive, the most creative, and the most democratic country,

in not only in the world, in the history of the world. And this is the system that we're going to throw in the ash barrel, and get some other system with blue ribbon people guiding everything. Well, you don't like blue ribbon, right? I don't like blue, call themselves blue ribbon. A problem I have with blue ribbon is that usually it doesn't mean that any people of color, not what's said in the fact that they call it blue. I think the other thing that's all, it's interesting, and just to add to the issues is, for example, there are some complications also in terms of the voting right to act and with this proposal. One of the things is that there's this thing about the deviation, how much each district can deviate from the other, and the highest standard is with the congressional seats, which is one person, which is the one person, one person, and in this bill that Cuomo proposed, he's talking about a 1%, and so what happens is that that is in terms of strict, you know, trying to keep one person, one vote, that's the whole idea, right?

But on the other hand, there's also the issue of how much flexibility you have. For example, in the voter right to act, it protects, with three counties in New York state, are covered by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, Manhattan, the Bronx, and Brooklyn. And in those states, it's a very strong law, because it means any time they make any changes in the electoral system, including moving a polling station, has to be sent to the Justice Department for pre-clearance. In fact, this is not discriminatory. In fact, this bill will have to be pre-cleared by the Justice Department itself, so what happens is that the whole Voting Rights Act protects, it also protects minority voters and make sure that to make sure that they're voting powers and not diluted. But in creating these districts, sometimes because of the way people live, they don't live in the boxes. It'd be nice if you could just, I love some of those states in the West, they like real like just squares, man, you just square the thing up and that's it, you know? But here, it's obviously much more complicated in terms of these districts.

For example, Jerry Nander, my big redistricting joke is the fact congressman in the skinny district, look at his district, he's like a heavy-set guy, and it's this, it's like this little room really long, the war, right? It's like a maverse to Nathan's. Z-Bores to Nathan. One person who represents that district, that's Jerry Nander, that's very good. But that issue of the deviation becomes a little complicated, because on the one hand, you want some degree of flexibility, not only around the Voting Rights Act, but also this thing about upstate, you know, you have the issue that you can't cross around townbound down the East County. There's some complication there, you know, there was a yamlet, the issue. I want to go to questions, but just to follow up on that, it was my experience, and I covered as a reporter, several, several redistricting, and I was always struck, especially in minority communities, that minority elected officials exploited the Voting Rights Act to pack as many black, to pack as many Latino voters, when they created the Bullwinkle

District, for instance, for Nity of Alaska, even though they had a chop off one of the antlers, you know, through the court, and that there were public and said, that's great, we support you in packing, because they knew that surrounding districts were going to be, if there's some equation of minority being more likely to be Democrat and white voters being less likely to be Democrat, and that, in that in fact, that had a lot to do with the Republicans taking the House in 1994, because all of a sudden you had this packing of people into democratic districts and smaller majorities of Republicans in the surrounding districts, and you were, and you were protecting incumbents as opposed to pushing the kinds of policy agenda that I think that you think progressive elected officials should be doing if they were down, but I think it's an over-generalization. The Velasque West District, as the Bullwinkle, as it was called, eventually-

Congresswoman Nity of Alaska, is that the first Puerto Rican Congresswoman? Eventually, of course, that district was challenged by the Republican, I'm not talking about the folks at Albany. Let's get big earphones. We're not talking about New York State. We're talking about people coming in from Texas to litigate about redistricting in New York City. Experts coming in from all over the country, they just run around a little dog and ponytail to challenge districts. That's what happens in the middle of Nity of Alaska's district. It was found to be to be too oddly shaped to be mindy. Jerry, Jerry, now I look good there. He's got chili. Yeah, but this district was just too weird looking. So it was challenge, and it was then slightly compressed together to make it still a district that people of Latino descent could elect the representative of their choice. But the real

question is, why was that district challenged, and why wasn't the not the district challenged? No, it wasn't a political reason. No, it wasn't a political. Well, you might say it's political, but it wasn't Albany. No, it was someone political from Texas who decided to do that. It wasn't some political from Texas. It was the larger Republican to my life. Well, the Republicans are political party. That's what I do. I mean, I don't think the Republicans in Texas are Washington are going to care about how, fairly, the New York Assembly or New York Senate is drawn. Yes, they do. To get some accountability into those institutions. Yes, they do. They challenge the came in from Texas and the Senate districts the last time around in New York. Guy Valle's district. No, the entire plan. Right. But particularly the guy Valle's district. No, the entire plan. I litigated it. No, the entire plan.

It wasn't anybody from New York City. It wasn't anybody from New York City. We're talking about national politics here. And yes, they came into New York State and litigated that. This is not some little thing. I am in favor of reform. But let's not kid ourselves. Let's not get up. Let's not be overnight. Let's get the reforms. But let's get the real people who we should be caring about involved. Not those blue ribbon panel, the people who are on the street living in New York State. Let's get them involved in terms of how government are. I'd like to see those kinds of options. I like to see those kinds of options. I'm naive and young. That's cool. Yeah. Let's get this. Let me go. Let me get a tell us, tell us your name and your campus. Hello, my name is Johnson Genoa. I attend Lehman College. And my question is basically about the downstate upstate issue with the budget and with politics in New York State in general. From my understanding, from I've learned actually through the ATR program, the class I'm taking is that there's a lot of conflict between the interests of upstate and the interests of downstate in particular with issues

like public transportation, the SUNY and CUNY budgets. And I'm curious if in this sort of redistricting proposal, if you have any ideas of how that sort of, those differences can be addressed, any sort of idea? And isn't it the case that you have a disproportionate number of districts upstate, that the way you carve them up, at least on the road, you know, and not only under size, but that you have Senate districts in particular will be kind of coming into the city a little bit, but basically being outside of the city districts in order to maximize the number of Republicans. City is 40% of the population of the state. So the city can't really, if everything were equal, the city couldn't really dictate what happens. What they do is there's a trade-off. The people of state need certain things. They need roads. They need school aid. They need other things of that nature. Weather is a big problem up there because buildings are exposed to very severe weather and the heating bills are just enormous for schools and libraries and things. So those are the things

they need. In New York City, we need transportation. It's a big problem here. So we have different interests and we try to make sure that in the balance, in the arguments between the two areas, we try to make sure they try to make sure they're needs that they can care and we try to make sure that they can care. I mean, that's what almost every democracy is about and that's what almost every legislature, whether it be the House of Parliament, England, or whether it be the state legislature in Albany or the Congress. That's what they do. That's why they get together and trade and argue. Well, we haven't gotten what finals, 2010 census figures yet. It should be coming pretty soon in terms of New York. And one of the dilemmas politically for upstate is that they're losing population upstate. So the districts are going to have to be, and downstate is growing. So that has a tremendous impact on redistricting the size of the districts, the shapes of the districts. Most people that have looked at some of the preliminary numbers, for example, is saying it's going to be difficult, for example,

for New York City, to have districts totally contained within New York City, the way it's going so far. So that creates a real, real issue in terms of how you structure this thing and that's where you have to have the transparency because there are little tricks that are played with the deviations, for example. That can benefit one part versus the other. So that's part of, I think, of the struggle going to see. The other thing is we've got to get, it's musical chairs with the Congress people. We've got to get ready to them. And how's that going to happen? To Democrats or to Republicans or they're usually as they usually do cut it down the middle or Republican or Democrat? Well, one upstate one downstate. Then they thank God that guy, they caught that guy with the shirt off and stuff. He's not here. But then, like, in New York, I'm going to jump on to two and a half men. So New York, you know, how does that happen? I don't know. But who knows what happens in New York, you know, at people's speculation about, you know, this guy or that guy. So it's, yeah, it's a tricky business and the redistricting becomes really important in terms of, you know, where the power is and the

advantage one part is going to have. However, it made a good point that, you know, if you read this stuff like 10 years ago and the projections about, you know, the reapportionment and redistricting and how the Republicans were going to win everything because the redistricting and the demography, you found it didn't quite work out that way. It was a little bit more complicated. In fact, by the end of the decade, you wound up, instead of with a Republican with a Democratic president. So the process is not that straightforward. But again, the issue is the one we talked about. BAM voters keep getting in the well. And the difference in quality of the candidates is a very important factor. The reason you have a Republican senator from Massachusetts is because the Democratic candidate was a doofess. And the people of Massachusetts. That's a technical political factor. That's a difficult factor. Who would go to Harvard and like, yeah, we do not want to doofess representing us. And that shows Senator Brown, who's not a doofess? Ironically, took a shirt off of us. I see a pattern.

Yeah, please. Let me, let me get another question. Name in your campus, please. My name is Marvant Desai. I'm from Queens College. I just wanted to know what is the perfect system for this issue? Who has it so that we know how it works if it works? The perfect system is to let me do it. Okay. Other than that, it's kind of difficult. Iowa, constitutionally, has a nonpartisan citizens system, which works. You know, California has recently made changes. The problem in New York, it has been so purely, crassly, partisan and political. And they, you know, you were talking about Governor Jerry, but I didn't get a sense that you thought what he did was bad. And the sense in this country, since 1820, is that gerrymandering is not good, because the district that he drew along the coast of Massachusetts that we're talking about, they said, oh, it looks like a salamander.

Let's call it a gerrymander. And because he had connected a bunch of towns surrounding Boston for some political benefit. And the people said, but that's not compact. There's no connection between these districts, between these communities. And you seem to say it with a sense of pride. And the problem is that Albany has perfected this to a science. So when the reforms that I'm talking about are Ed Koch, which we've been discussing here, are small steps in getting towards, you know, an Iowa system, where it is nonpartisan in relatively clean or California with citizen involvement. We were below the bottom. We're the worst in the country in terms of this, in many people's opinion. And we're just trying to get it a little bit above there. That's fair. Yes, sir? How are you doing? My name is William Leveritt. I'm from Queens College. My question is, we were talking about transparency. And I feel like a lot of times in order to hold our elected

officials accountable, the community needs to see what's going on. So I guess my question would be in terms of the places where people receive the most information, whether it be like arts or media services. How would you propose a better way to just get that information out there? Because I know certain elected officials, they'll meet with their, you know, community members in order to discuss what's going on. But I'm not sure if that's happening across the board. There's very little coverage of Albany in, I will exempt the present company. But there's very little coverage of what happens in Albany in the New York City Press. So you have a, an area of the state that is really dependent on the New York City Press about 5% of the state, probably, when you include the suburbs that listen to the TV programs, get almost no coverage whatsoever. They, they passed a reform to let press come into the committee meetings. But no press over comes into the committee meetings. I had, I don't know how many

committee meetings in my, when I was chair of the higher education. No, maybe once or twice somebody from the press would come in. That's all, it doesn't happen. I think, what did they used to say about Central America that Americans do anything, anything with Central America, except read about it. So, I think that, yeah, but I think that there's transparency issue, the participation there are ways that you create rules like there are in this, in this proposal, to make sure there are public hearings, not only the frequency of the hearings, but where they're going to be held, things like, you know, having the community have access to the data and to the mapping technology so that they also can develop their own plans. There are things like, which I, I'm disappointed in. I see for example, the FCC, right? If you deal with the FCC, let's say I meet with the staff of the FCC, I have to write them a letter that they file saying that I spoke to them. That way there's, there's no bullshit behind the scenes, you know, and that's the kind of thing that I like to see around me district

thing as well. Anybody who talks to the staff has got, or a member of the commission has got to basically put, you know, those kinds of things, I think, empower the community and those are the things that we have to strengthen right now. And I think like I said, ultimately, I think that the issue is can we change the constitution to make the line very clear, very bright, between what the legislators role is and the public role is. And, you know, that's ultimately what I like. I think you put, I think you put your finger on the real question here. And that is in today's age, I admit I'm of the old age, other age, the non digital age, I still read newspapers. I confess that I read newspapers, folks got their news from the print. Now, I'm happy to say that there's a lot more information out there, but the information about what happens in Albany is still like one of the best kept secrets. And I do say, again, present company accepted, because I do read coverage of what happens in Albany, at least something that Albany. But there needs to be more of

a demand as well. But when Angela talks about data being available and people being able to come in and look at it, sounds very much like the city district commission set up. Yeah, it is. And I'm very proud to say that I was a vice chair at that commission and I said, this is the commission that drew city when the city council went from 35 seats to 51 seats that had a draw new line city wide. And I actually pressed and pressed and pressed and we got them so that we had tons. I mean, dozens of free terminals, anyone could come in and use them. We had information forums. We had more forums anywhere that had ever existed in the entire state. We had any kind of information. We had any different languages. So we tried to do make it as accessible as possible. And I think that that worked in terms of the redistricting process. But I'm actually talking a little bit broader now in terms of in terms of making Albany better, what people need to do on fixing it, what people

need to know is what is happening in Albany. And how Albany actually works. Even though my, my colleague here exaggerated a bit about one man, it's only a slight exaggeration. It really is broken. Yes, sir. My name is Carlos Santiago Cano from Baruch College. And my question was that keeping in mind that district lines have to be in place before the two tough Senate 12 election, which is less than two years from now. Don't you think that instead of finding a short-term solution like we did with Obamacare, Albany should focus on more serious problems like balancing the budget, reducing taxes, helping the private sector create jobs and reducing spending. But do you think it's an either or I mean, how do you, you have, you know, you are legally required. Once you have, once you have a census, the population shifts, you have to, you have to. But that's the argument that the Republicans are using basically. Right. And as having signed, as you said, that is a pledge, they're backing off by by by say, it's also that they rather, like you

said, pay more attention to the budget, that kind of stuff. One of the things though, I thought what you were going was when you talked about that this has to be done by a certain time is the issue you raised. And that is that this thing has to be resolved by at least the end of this session. Otherwise, it's going to be a real timeframe kind of a time, like a crunch in terms of people have to, it has to go through the justice department, right, to preclearance, people, you have to have a petitioning period, you have to have public hearings, all this kind of stuff before that election. So that's the other thing. And that's the, that's where I think the Republicans have time on their side. Because they, the number one, that issue is a powerful one, right? The big issue now is the budget. And then the other thing is that these guys just got elected. So they could take a hit from a catch. They could take the robo calls from a catch and it's not going to affect them by the same, you said the Republicans, we should be a little clearer. It's the Republicans in the state Senate. Right. Right. And meanwhile, those 50 Republicans in the state assembly, they're all for this. Because they have been the oppressed minority for 30 years.

I guess it's going to pass the dumbbell. So they are, they were the first people for this because they realize they have been drawn down into oblivion every 10 years. And they just said, hey, if we get a fair chance, maybe instead of having 50 seats, we'll have 60 seats. Maybe we'll get 65 seats, then up to the halfway point of 75. So it's the, we're talking about independent commission. They have been excluded. And the Democrats have been excluded to the state Senate because the way it works in Albany, much more than in Washington, it's like, I have the power, you have nothing. And they just say, it changed the rules this last week where the, the, the, the, the, the in skulls are saying, look, if the Democrats in the, in the Senate want to endorse this, fine. But now I find out they passed the rule, they made some rule changes where the Democrats can't do that. They won't let them, they won't

let them, it's the rules. Yes. Hi, my name is Danielle Reed from Queens College. And my question is for other, uh, Edward or Michael, uh, do you think that if a congressman represents a homogeneous district that he'll pass a better legislation or that possibly because the district has more trust in him, he can get away with legislation that isn't as appropriate. Well, it depends on, in my opinion, it depends on the congressman, uh, the congressman, uh, woman, uh, and, uh, uh, how they perceive, you know, you have a balance that you have to achieve your own conscience, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the desires of your district, uh, the politics of the area, the, the interests of the state, you have a lot of things, you have to balance. And then finally come up with a judgment, you have to deal with, yes or no on a bill. That's, that's not complicated. The vote is uncomplicated, but the thinking that goes up to it is complicated. And I, I'd, I'd say there's no one answer to that. There's a lot of different, it depends on the congressman. But, uh, but

we're, we only have a couple of minutes left, but are people better served by having diverse districts or by having districts that or let's say ethnically or ethnically or politically, if it's a good creative person, if it's a good creative person that better served by having a diverse district, if it's, if it's, uh, a lump on a log, then a better served by having a homogeneous. Well, it, what do you mean by diverse? I mean, do you mean people speak different languages in the district? Yes. People who have different, different religious traditions or people that have different political interests and would tend to vote for different people. Um, so that if every two years, that member Congress is going to have, uh, you know, really to, to, to work his or her, uh, rear end off to be reelected, that might be better. You're talking about competitive district, competitive districts. So, so it's not like, okay, I'm elected. And now 40 years later, I'm still there, because every two years, no one even bothers me. Except that, in this state, except

that in this state, because of the, you know, let's, this city being overwhelming democratic, that takes place in the primary. That doesn't take place in the general way. Right. Right. But the, I mean, the assembly men who represented this studio, uh, gentlemen, they missed a Gottfried has been there for 40 years. So he's been reforming it for 40 years. And now it's all reformed. And under the rules of Albany, since he's been there the longest, he gets the biggest staff. So he's here in the house committee. He's, he's in Washington. They say, you get 20 people and you get 20 people and you get 20 people and you get 20 people and all, but he's like, oh, you get 100 people and you get two. Um, because the way it works in Albany, it's all decided by who has the power and the people without getting nothing. Unlike Washington and unlike most of the country, legislative resources are divided by, by power and seniority in Albany. But, but also I think it's important in the fact that, for example, uh, communities of color, black, Latino Asians have struggled

to get fair representation in the system. So that, what we have is, this is voting rights act that promotes that. But also the idea, this concept of communities of interest and that is that, that notion of having people who are like minded in a district, who also have, you know, cohesive and can, and can be mobilized around certain issues articulate those issues. Now, one of the problems is, is the lack under representation of these various communities. I'm not saying that that should be the only, you know, factor, but I think it's an important factor that sometimes we kind of throw out. I, right now, we're looking at the redistricting process in New Jersey and talk about Latino under representation. So we're getting into these kinds of conversations. Meanwhile, Latinos are just not present. It's not good for the community in terms of, you know, it's representation. Also, not good for the legislative body to not have any diversity within it. So it's still a problem and kind of one of the last guys can make a legitimate point, a very legitimate point that she has to represent people who are not living in her district. There are, like, Latino women who, who need her, who needs someone who speaks to the language, who need someone who

understands their particular problems, and they don't live in her district. And she has to represent them. And she, and she should have more staff of that, I believe. So, what do you think is going to happen? We have about a minute left. I mean, how independent, I mean, you've been, you've been watching this on a day-to-day basis. The, let's see, this is March. This is March. They're going to push it off and push it off. And, you know, the Senate Republicans are happy to take robocalls against from Ed Koch and be yelled at by the Daily News and the other people in the press in this panel and the people out there, because, under Albany rules, you lose power and you're out. And they're afraid of that, and then I'm going to budge. What do you, I mean, how do you see this playing out? Business as usual. Albany. So, I mean, you think that this is going to wind up. I mean, you know, Ed is quite persistent. It won't go away. But you think that they will basically outweight this little, this little fuel. I said that, so the Senate's telling you, but I mean it in both ways. If, if in fact,

in regard to the changes that are necessary, that we do need reform, I do not think they're going to happen for all the wrong reasons. In regard to what's going to happen in terms of the real world, in terms of the real world, this is the end of the democracy, I do not think that there's going to be too much change on the ground. I just got the goodbye sign. I always make deadline. I want to thank you all. We'll see you next time on CUNY Forum. Thank you. Thank you.