Final court contest over Nassau districts

The political season in Nassau has turned strange -- not for what is happening on the campaign trail but for what is still unfolding in the state's courts.

Talk of partisan gridlock and delay usually confines itself to the legislative branch. This time, however, major-party differences appear to be on display in the judicial branch, in an extended controversy over the county's legislative district lines.

Consider the legal contest so far through the major-party lens.

Nearly three months ago, Republicans who run the county executive's office and legislative majority took formal action to redraw the 19 districts whose representatives must be elected in November.

For the uninitiated: Redistricting is done across the nation, in the first couple of years of every decade, to adjust state, local and congressional seats to census changes.

As expected, the Nassau GOP drew these lines to its advantage. As expected, Democrats wanted to run once more on the old lines -- which they drew a decade ago, to their advantage.

The Democrats went to court. On July 21, after spending time wading into charter language as opaque as an inkblot soaked in mud, acting state Supreme Court Justice Steven Jaeger, a Democrat, ruled against enacting the Republican plan for the fall.

Petition deadlines passed. The Republicans appealed. At the Appellate Division in Brooklyn, two Republican judges and two Democratic judges heard the case Aug. 1. Election cases are commonly heard that way. In the panel's hearing Aug. 1, the lawyers on hand included Peter Bee for the GOP and John Ciampoli, now county attorney and previously the canny legal advocate for the state Republican Party. On the Democratic side, the party's Nassau counsel Steven R. Schlesinger represented the Democratic lawmakers, and Tom Garry spoke for Democratic election-board commissioner Bill Biamonte.

The ruling took another eight days. Democratic justices Robert J. Miller and Jeffrey A. Cohen supported Democrat Jaeger's ruling; Republican justices Daniel Angiolillo and Thomas Dickerson voted to reverse. Their written opinions reflected divergent views of how the county's 1994 charter guides redistricting.

Breaking the party-line deadlock, Justice Reinaldo Rivera, brought late into the case, sided with the GOP. Republican ex-Gov. George Pataki in 2002 promoted Rivera, a registered Democrat, to the appellate level.

Now Nassau Democrats bring their 3-2 loss to the state's highest court, the Court of Appeals, in Albany -- which consists of four Republican and three Democratic appointees, including chief judge Jonathan Lippman. Arguments are set for Wednesday -- three weeks before Primary Day. Meanwhile, Nassau lawyer Frederick K. Brewington has a federal lawsuit involving redistricting's impact on minority communities that he's ready to advance once the state contest is resolved.

By Primary Day Sept. 13, who knows -- perhaps voters and candidates will know which districts they live in. Wouldn't that be a nice thing for the divided party duopoly to finally deliver?