(x-posted at ACT NOW)
I'm glad I got to tell the hacks on LATFOR how pathetic they are at the Brooklyn LATFOR hearing on Wednesday. Here's to free speech.
Here are a few examples of the absurdly gerrymandered proposed districts: For some background, to quote from my colleague, Carolyn Jackson:
It’s painful to admit, but a voter in rural upstate New York has more clout than I do or you do, if you live in New York City or its suburbs. It’s been that way for a while, but it would get much worse with the ridiculous new maps drawn in Albany by the Republican-dominated New York State Legislative Task Force on Demographic Research and Reapportionment. Scientific as it may sound, the task force is not the nonpartisan group promised by 52 of 63 state senators (83%) when they ran for office in 2010.-Fifty percent of the new Senate districts are more than three percent larger or smaller than the average population size. Guess which ones are overstuffed with Democrats. Naturally, this limits the number of Democratic-leaning districts. That’s convenient.
-Latinos in Suffolk County and African Americans in Nassau County found their populations split between districts so their clout is diminished to the benefit of Republicans. How surprising.
-Six Democrats find themselves running for re-election against other Democrats; funny this didn’t happen to Republicans.
These maps give new meaning to the term “gerrymandering.”