Dawidziak: Redistricting should be fair

Long Island is getting more diverse. The 2010 Census data are showing what pollsters and demographers have known for years: Nassau and Suffolk counties continue to grow and change to be more ethnically, racially and religiously heterogeneous.

Another area of growing diversity -- uncounted by the Census Bureau -- is in our political affiliations. And it's this change that is most vulnerable to highly partisan redistricting efforts.

Time was when Long Island was so dominantly Republican that mere registration in the GOP ensured a candidate's success. Over the years, enrollment in the Democratic Party increased. But also growing -- almost unseen at first -- were the independent voters. Minor parties, too, were being established and began attracting registrants.

For years, Republicans relied on getting out their base voters as a strategy for victory, and for years it worked. Democrats, on the other hand -- with only about 25 percent of the enrolled voters, and needing every vote they could get -- got much more adept at trying to win over the independent voters. It was this approach that put Democrat Pat Halpin in the Suffolk County executive seat in 1988, changing the trajectory of Long Island's political development.

Looking strictly at party registration figures yields some interesting data. Nassau's registration is roughly 38 percent Democrat, 36 percent Republican and 26 percent independent or other. Suffolk's registration is roughly 34 percent Republican, 33 percent Democrat and 33 percent independent or other.

As much as this demonstrates the decline in dominance by the two major parties, it's only part of the story. Now take into account the RINOs (Republican In Name Only) and the DINOs. Many voters choose a party when they turn 18, but when they mature, their political views mature, too. While they may no longer identify ideologically with Republicans or Democrats, they rarely change their registration. Recent polls on Long Island have as many as 39 percent of voters describing themselves as independents -- regardless of their registered party.

This means that neither major party represents the biggest plurality of Long Islanders. We've become so diverse that both parties need to fight for the heart and soul of the moderate, independent swing voters, who've become the biggest slice of the electoral pie. That's a good thing, as it pulls politics back from extreme, polar positions.

But it also means the largest plurality of the voting public rarely, if ever, gets a seat at the governing table. Legislative committee structures are based on the two-party majority-minority relationship. Most patronage jobs, such as those at off-track betting and the boards of elections, are doled out by whichever major party is in power. Long Island's growing ranks of independents simply aren't represented in these jobs.

More important, the reapportionment committees -- which redraw legislative district lines based on census data -- have historically been controlled by majority party members looking to protect their own electoral chances.

In the statewide elections last year, there were impassioned calls for a more independent approach in this once-a-decade process. While it's naive to think you could ever take the politics completely out of this, a more independent method, with more independent representation, is sorely needed.

The fact that many legislators are turning their backs on last fall's campaign promises to support nonpartisan redistricting is as disheartening as it is predictable. Voters deserve districts that represent the full diversity of their communities, and legislators should give them that -- even if that means these districts become more competitive. They already have, and will continue to become, more independent.