The Point: LI pols' stake in the Albany map scrap
U.S. Rep. Andrew Garbarino's home in Bayport would land in the 1st Congressional District under the tentative redistricting proposal backed by Democratic commissioners. Credit: Marcus Santos
Proposed maps issued by Democrats on the Independent Redistricting Commission this week could provide a starting point for the party’s legislative supermajority in Albany to complete the task.
Under the tentative proposal backed by Democratic commissioners, Republican Rep. Andrew Garbarino’s home in Bayport would land in the 1st Congressional District currently represented by GOP Rep. Lee Zeldin of Shirley, who’s running for governor rather than for reelection.
That’s just a small and symbolic part of how Garbarino’s CD2 would be transformed — from a relatively compact area running along the South Shore to a north-south district with a leg that reaches east. The Town of Brookhaven becomes fractured between Suffolk districts under that plan, despite some appeals during the commission hearings that it should be kept whole.
The border of these two districts looks on the Democratic map like a jagged link between jigsaw puzzle pieces. CD1 would also extend to the south into heavily Democratic precincts of Brentwood and Central Islip.
Here The Point took the commission’s proposed GOP and Democratic maps and enhanced them with specific town borders for a more detailed look at what could be the starting point for boundaries of the new districts.
The commission’s Democrats would also alter the Brooklyn portion of first-term Staten Island Republican Nicole Malliotakis’ district. Republicans suspect that in drawing part but not all of the heavily-Asian Sunset Park neighborhood to link up with Chinatown in lower Manhattan, Democrats could be making her CD11 more favorable to their candidates. Last month Democrat Max Rose, who lost to Malliotakis in 2020 by six percentage points, announced his bid for a rematch.
Redistricting draws outsized attention this year with make-or-break midterm congressional elections coming up. So the prevailing question is whether New York Democrats here can and will use the lines to reduce the number of Republicans in the state delegation from the current eight, thus offsetting the impact of red-state redistricting. Nationally, a pickup of five seats is all it takes for the GOP to win back a majority in the 435-member House.
On a state level, three Assembly districts in the commission Democrats’ plan would, for the first time, cross the border between Nassau and Queens. Nassau residents had asked the commission to avoid such crossovers. But there were requests as well for Asian-American communities of interest to be consolidated and that appears to be the motivation for at least one of these proposed New York City-Nassau County combinations.
Also, in the Democratic plan, the Franklin Square residence of Republican Assemb. Ed Ra, who represents the current 19th Assembly District, would be shifted into the 22nd A.D. currently represented by Democratic Assemb. Michaele Solages.
Commission vice chairman Jack Martins, the former GOP state senator, has protested what he calls the Democrats’ abrupt refusal to complete an intense series of negotiations on a single map that would be sent to the legislature for approval. Chairman David Imamura of Westchester and other Democrats publicly denied that characterization during their meeting Monday.
Maps approved by Republicans on the commission — which are unlikely to get much love in Albany — would redraw Rep. Kathleen Rice’s CD4, putting it in part into northeastern Queens. CD3, currently represented by Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-Glen Cove), would be changed to stay entirely in the Long Island counties, eliminating some solidly Democratic areas.
All these maps carry only the weight of suggestions. Unable to agree on a single 10-year plan, the commission voted as expected along party lines Monday to submit two separate sets of proposed state and federal lines to lawmakers in Albany. The Democrat-dominated legislature is widely expected to reject both as a prelude to setting the lines themselves.
Ten years ago, when the Senate was controlled by Republicans and before there was an independent commission, state lawmakers haggled mostly over the Assembly and Senate districts near and dear to their immediate experience.
Under the 2014 constitutional amendment creating the commission, the Senate and Assembly would need to reject both commission plans and send it all back to the panel for another try. Further commission effort may or may not be fruitless at this point, but that’s the prescribed process. The legislature’s own task force for drawing lines still officially exists.
Once the first-ever commission exercise is completed, possibly by the week after next, the legislators could have their way with the maps as they always did before the "independent" system.
Many expected that outcome all along for 2022, so crunchtime is just beginning, with the real details eagerly awaited.
Dan Janison is a member of the Newsday editorial board.
