NOTE: THIS IS AN EVOLVING BLOG POST, SO CHECK BACK FOR UPDATES
I'm just going to deal with the Congressional districts in this post. As you all know, New York lost one congressional seat, reducing our delegation from 27 to 26 districts. Also, since the 2010 census, the state has seen a slight shift in population toward downstate. Whereas, the state population grew 823,147 since 2010, 740,623 (90%) of that increase came "downstate" (ie. NYC, Westchester and Nassau counties.
With this population shift, one might expect that in addition to losing a Congressional seat (from 27 to 26), a Congressional seat will be shifted from upstate to downstate, giving NYC an additional representative. However, with the 2020 redistricting, each Congressional district in New York has expanded from 717,707 to 776,971 residents. As a result, in NYC, where most of the population growth occurred, the existing districts absorb most of the districts' expansion without the need for dramatic transformation of district lines. The impact on districts upstate, while more severe, is tempered by the relatively easy task of expanding 2010 districts to absorb the one-district loss that ensued from the 2020 census.
Note: NY"s Congressional seats at 776,971 are slightly higher than the national average of 762,000. With our 26 districts, are 390,000 New Yorkers (26 X 15,000) effectively disenfranchised? Maybe it's time to expand Congress?
Now comes the fun part. Thanks to some very cool websites, you too can try redistricting yourself at home and role play running the redistricting commission without having to sit through endless hours of citizens' comments.
New York's government - the governor (cough), the state senate and assembly -- are all securely in the hands of Democrats. While previous redistricting was purportedly balanced, I'm assuming that the new redistricting will ultimately favor Democrats. I'm a Democrat and I'm not going to pretend to be fair and balanced. Currently, of New York's 27 Congresspeople, 8 are Republicans with 9 districts considered to lean Republican. That's not going to continue under my redistricting plan. Of course, I don't have to face legal challenges afterward, so that's easy for me to say.
Each Congressional district has to be very close to 776,971 (each NY Congressional district in New York must be within .75% of 776,971 residents). I managed to carve out 26 districts with the biggest discrepancy being 486 residents. Dropping one district entirely was very easy as Rep. Tom Reed has announced his retirement - perhaps only coincidentally coming after accusations of Cuomo-like behavior. Reed represents New York's 23rd district - which is basically the "southern tier" stretching along the Pennsylvania border. Goodbye, NY's 23rd!
Also, I've tried to be conscious of the privileges of seniority to some extent: that means no extreme messing around with Democrats Jerry Nadler (1992), Nydia Valazquez and Carolyn Maloney (1993) and Gregory Meeks (1998). With Tom Reed's retirement, the senior Republicans took office only in 2015 (Stefanik, Zeldin, and Karko), which doesn't earn them too much deference.
I. Upstate
For the "upstate" portion of my plan, I've kept Democrats Brian Higgins (Buffalo 26) and Joe Morelle (Rochester 25) in their safe Democratic districts.
This leaves Republican Chris Jacobs with a safe seat in the state's rural far west in a reconfigured, 23rd. On the other hand, I've tried to make Republican John Katko's slightly Democratic leaning district 24 (which includes Syracuse) more firmly Democratic. I've narrowed the Republican majority in district 22 to give a challenge to newcomer Republican Claudia Tenney who won by just 109 votes last year. Rising Republican star Elise Stefanik' s 21st district still maintains a small Republican advantage. I moved Troy and some of the capitol area from Paul Tonko's secure district to bolster Antonio Delgado in the competitive 19th district. I've also stretched 19 west to give Delgado some of Binghamton. .
Of the 5 upstate Republican congressional seats we have currently, I believe only one (Jacobs in the 23rd) is totally safe. Under my proposal, Stefanik and Tenney's districts still lean Republican, but by narrow margins. As my map shows, this was achieved without resorting to outlandish gerrymandering.
II. Downstate
As far as downstate, I've had to reconfigure 16 (Jamaal Bowman), 17 (Mondaire Jones) and 18 (Sean Maloney) to make the downstate population shift work.
In theory Sean Maloney is vulnerable but I've managed reconfigure his 18th district to the west half of the Hudson valley while very slightly increasing his narrow Democratic voter majority from his current district lines. Although I believe he's losing his home in Cold Spring (along with Putnam and parts of Westchester and Dutchess counties), I'm keeping the Western half of his current district intact and giving him part of Rockland. I'm also speculating that Maloney, in his fifth term, will fair better in these conservative leaning areas west of the Hudson than the freshmen progressive caucus members in 16 and 17. Which leads us to progressive caucus freshmen Mondaire Jones and Jamaal Bowman. I've reconfigured 16 and 17 fairly significantly as I've had to push both district upstate. I've kept Jones in his new White Plains apartment, and given him most of the east half of Westchester County, up through Putnam, Dutchess on the east side of the Hudson. As a Greenburgh resident, I insist on unifying Greenburgh in one Congressional district that I'm giving to Bowman along with the south/east portion of Rockland County. Bowman keeps Yonkers, southern Westchester but loses much of the Bronx. Sorry guys, but redistricting is not the best time to be a freshman.
III. NYC
New York City is a jumble with 11 districts, which I've adjusted somewhat but kept largely intact to ( keep each representative within their home bases, along with maintaining - with only minor adjustments - Black and Hispanic majority districts where they currently exist, as well as Grace Meng's Queen's 6th district. I've adjusted Jerry Nadler's bizarrely "Jerrymandered" district to dig into Malliotakis's current Republican voter majority, refining the 11th to 50/50 while keeping Nadler's 10th very safely Democratic. I've also adjusted the boundaries of Garbarino's 2nd district on Long Island to narrow his small Republican majority even further.
With my current redistricting proposal, the 26 districts' partisan lean ends up as follows:
DIST Pop. +/- DEM %. REP %
| 1 | 776,671 | -0.04% | 46.39% | 53.61% | ||
| 2 | 776,485 | -0.06% | 49.51% | 50.49% | ||
| 3 | 777,389 | 0.05% | 53.12% | 46.88% | ||
| 4 | 777,412 | 0.06% | 58.39% | 41.61% | ||
| 5 | 777,150 | 0.02% | 88.46% | 11.54% | ||
| 6 | 777,118 | 0.02% | 67.75% | 32.25% | ||
| 7 | 776,808 | -0.02% | 90.18% | 9.82% | ||
| 8 | 776,545 | -0.05% | 89.88% | 10.12% | ||
| 9 | 776,926 | -0.01% | 85.41% | 14.59% | ||
| 10 | 777,086 | 0.01% | 75.55% | 24.45% | ||
| 11 | 776,910 | -0.01% | 50.06% | 49.94% | ||
| 12 | 776,847 | -0.02% | 80.99% | 19.01% | ||
| 13 | 776,710 | -0.03% | 93.95% | 6.05% | ||
| 14 | 777,037 | 0.01% | 84.52% | 15.48% | ||
| 15 | 776,945 | 0.00% | 95.89% | 4.11% | ||
| 16 | 777,021 | 0.01% | 67.70% | 32.30% | ||
| 17 | 776,772 | -0.03% | 54.66% | 45.34% | ||
| 18 | 776,877 | -0.01% | 51.44% | 48.56% | ||
| 19 | 777,036 | 0.01% | 51.21% | 48.79% | ||
| 20 | 777,117 | 0.02% | 55.52% | 44.48% | ||
| 21 | 776,755 | -0.03% | 47.21% | 52.79% | ||
| 22 | 777,470 | 0.06% | 48.32% | 51.68% | ||
| 23 | 777,138 | 0.02% | 38.83% | 61.17% | ||
| 24 | 776,989 | 0.00% | 54.37% | 45.63% | ||
| 25 | 776,961 | 0.00% | 57.65% | 42.35% | ||
| 26 | 777,074 | 0.01% | 62.10% | 37.90% | ||
| STATEWIDE | 62.99% | 37.01% |
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