County legislative redistricting: a temptation for political avarice

The shape and composition of the Nassau County Legislature’s 19 districts are modified after every U.S. Census to reflect changes in population from one district to another. The objective is to roughly equalize the number of people in each district, while also ensuring minority voters’ rights. Sounds pretty straightforward, right? It could be, but it isn’t.

The process of redistricting is fraught with challenges. Incumbent parties in each district want to preserve or strengthen their grip on re-electability. Villages and neighborhoods don’t want to be divided into different districts. Minorities don’t want their voting power diluted by having their communities fractured into separate districts. And there’s the mathematical problem of reapportioning each new district with about the same number of people while respecting municipal boundaries and “communities of interest” as much as possible.

Redistricting should not be a decennial opportunity for Republican and Democratic party officials to solidify their strongholds and weaken their opponents’ influence. Though those who benefit from party patronage may support using redistricting to keep their benefactors in power, this should never be one of the goals of the process.

Last year, State Supreme Court Judge Steven Jaeger put a stop to the county GOP’s push to implement its own unilaterally approved maps for the 2011 election. “The Court concludes,” Jaeger ruled, “that there is no basis in the Nassau County Charter itself, the legislative intent, the legislative history, or the established past practice of the Legislature to immediately adjust the 19 County legislative districts for the 2011 general election.” The judge wrote that the charter calls for a three-step process “to take place over the course of many months for implementation in 2013.”