A veto by Cuomo may save redistricting

Looking at the current New York state government, you could almost forget that until recently it was an ineffective embarrassment, a decidedly non-functional democracy.

Since Andrew Cuomo was elected governor, things have been looking up in our state. There’s been ethics reform and mandate relief; same-sex couples are finally allowed to marry here; the 2 percent tax cap should help force more modest spending levels; and in 2011 there was the rarest of occurrences in Albany — legislators balanced the budget and passed it on time.

The one task at which lawmakers have consistently failed the people of the state, however, is redistricting. Every 10 years, after the federal census, the lines of state Assembly and Senate districts, and Congressional districts, must be redrawn to reflect New York’s ever-changing demographics. The task seems a straightforward mathematical challenge: If an area shows an increase in population, it gets an increase in representation, and if its population drops, so does the number of legislators it sends to the capital, with the goal of approximate equalization among all districts. But what should be a transparent, aboveboard process inevitably gets bogged down in political gamesmanship and shady deals. What we, the people, get in the end are “redrawn” districts that keep incumbents in office year after year.

In New York, Democrats control the Assembly and Republicans control the Senate. So it’s no surprise that Republicans are protesting the redistricting lines the Democrats have drawn for the Assembly, while Democrats are crying foul over the lines their opponents have drawn in the Senate.