It's Time to Draw County Legislative Lines

Judie Gorenstein is president of the League of Women Voters of Huntington and voter service chair for the LWV of Suffolk County.

Now that the 2010 Census has been completed, it is once again time for the state and county to establish legislative districts.

Who draws the lines and how they are drawn will affect elections for the next 10 years.

Each state and county has their own standards for creating districts. In the past, in both Suffolk County and New York State, the legislators drew the legislative lines. 

This resulted in legislators choosing their voters rather than voters choosing their legislators. Of course, there are  criteria for redistricting;  e.g., keeping districts compact and contiguous, having them  close to same size ,and complying  with Voting Rights Act. 

However, when we look at some of the districts that have been drawn in the past in New York, we see that many are not compact, not contiguous, and that the size varies greatly.  Allowing legislators to draw the lines gives them enormous opportunity to maintain the status quo, keep their own districts, and get re-elected.

In New York incumbents have been returned to office over 90% of the time.

Suffolk County was the first county in New York to enact legislation providing for a nonpartisan commission to draw the lines for the County Legislative Districts, ensuring a fair and objective process by which legislative districts are drawn. The eight members for this commission will be selected this month. 

The majority leader and the minority leader of the Suffolk County Legislature will each  choose two retired judges, one representative from a publicly recognized voter's rights or public policy organization and one representative from a publicly recognized minority organization to be on this commission. 

 New York State has not yet established a non-partisan procedure for State Legislators and Congressional Representatives  A bill has passed the assembly and there is now a bill in the senate, S.1614B,  which would  establish a redistricting commission that would be fairly chosen, non-partisan and reflect the diversity of our state, allowing the district lines to be drawn in a manner that does not favor an incumbent or political party.   

The League of Women Voters is and always has been  for a truly representative electoral system and strongly supports a nonpartisan redistricting commission. 

LWVNYS has taken the lead to promote grass roots pressure on all state assemblymen and senators to pass a bill this year so that district lines for the 2012 election will be drawn in a non-partisan manner.  

At the LWV of Huntington's  in October, all candidates agreed  that the state electoral districts should be drawn by a nonpartisan, independent panel. Now is the time that the candidates who won, OUR  representatives, need to hear from US the importance of passing a bill to make this a reality. We need to be certain that in 2012, the voters choose their legislators, not vice versa.