Redistricting contrast: Nassau vs. Suffolk

At first glance, the difference in approach between Long Island's counties couldn't appear sharper when it comes to reshaping legislative districts around the latest U.S. Census findings.

Suffolk emerged years ago as a model of reform-in-formation.

Late last December, County Executive Steve Levy hosted a joint teleconference to underscore that the county was on the verge of creating a first-in-the-state independent panel to remove the sensitive process from hands-on partisan control.

He was joined by good-government activist Blair Horner of the New York Public Interest Research Group and former New York City Mayor Ed Koch -- who support such a process for state races.

Legislation creating the change this year was enacted in 2007, during the first term of the Levy administration.

But while the new commission was supposed to be appointed by the beginning of January, John Kennedy (R-Nesconset) didn't become minority leader until the following month. And he says he's still working to find those who qualify under the legislation creating the panel. His four picks are required to include two judges who have been retired for at least a decade.

"I don't know if we'll have new [district] lines in effect this year," Kennedy said Tuesday. "But we will have the commission seated . . . I am working as diligently as I can to get the appointees."

The current boundaries took effect for the county's November 2003 legislative election.

Term-limited Majority Leader Jon Cooper (D-Huntington), meanwhile, has his appointments set: retired judges Leon Lazer and Harry Seidell, Irving Tolliver of the NAACP and Nancy Marr of the League of Women Voters in Brookhaven.

Redistricting on a local, state and federal level is always hard-fought -- with its capacity to make or break legislative careers and majorities.

And while Suffolk sweats the details of its new process, a different picture emerges in Nassau. There, we know in advance that politicians-in-charge will draw the map the old-fashioned way. There, the hot issue of the day is not how they do so but when.

As in Suffolk, the last set of district borders took effect in Nassau for the 2003 elections. But in an opinion released late last week, John Ciampoli, the county attorney for GOP Nassau Executive Edward Mangano, cites Section 112 of the county charter.

As Ciampoli wrote it, this section "mandates that the Legislature adopt a plan of apportionment (by local law) within six months of the announcement of the Decennial Census. This year the data from the 2010 Census was released on April 1, 2011. Accordingly, legislative action is required on or before Oct. 1, 2011."

"Let me state in the strongest terms possible," says Ciampoli, "that the clear intent of the Nassau County Charter was to give our citizens the full benefit of the new census data as soon as possible."

Presiding Officer Peter Schmitt (R-Massapequa) called for the legislature to vote on new district boundaries May 23. Democrats vowed to challenge the move in court -- saying the lines should take effect in 2013.

Republicans are moving to draw the borders to their best advantage for the decade to come while they know they have the chance. Or put another way: Democrats don't like Ciampoli's read on the law because if they win back a legislative majority in November, they'd get a hand on the redistricting pen.

Beyond the merits, the hour is getting late. The petition process for candidacies is due to begin in June.