In 2012, the people of NY were told that the days of partisan gerrymandering were over. A new independent commission, not lawmakers, would draw electoral maps. The commission imploded, lawmakers once again drew maps. 'This process was designed to fail.'
The Assembly Chamber during a recent Legislative Session at the New York state Capitol.Never again would New York lawmakers exclusively draw the state’s U.S. congressional districts or their own state district lines, a decennial process that Democrats and Republicans had used for generations to tighten their grip on power.
It has all left many Albany watchers – and even some lawmakers themselves – to draw the same conclusion: The new redistricting system, a decade in the making, was set up to fail. Then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed them into law, despite previously pledging to veto any maps he found to be hyperpartisan. But he extracted a wide-ranging deal in exchange for his signature, which in part included a constitutional amendment that created the Independent Redistricting Commission process.
She said she's even more disappointed that there was little opportunity for public input on the Democrats’ plan; the proposal for congressional lines was just released on Sunday ahead of the Wednesday vote, despite community groups“We are not surprised by what we are seeing,” Lerner said. “This is what a partisan gerrymander looks like.”
The 2012 redistricting deal was struck by Cuomo, then-Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, a Democrat, and then-Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, a Republican. Senate Democrats didn’t even vote on it back then; they walked out of the chamber in protest.
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