Morning Read: Census numbers rattle NY-23rd
With news that New York state will lose two House seats, newspapers across the region are asking big questions about how this could reshape the NY-23 seat now held by Democrat Bill Owens.
Here’s what state Senator Joe Griffo told the Watertown Daily Times:
“I don’t know how much bigger the district can get, but I would think because of its uniqueness it would be a difficult seat to change,” Mr. Griffo said. “We need to look at the numbers. We really don’t know the demographics.”
It appears that the 23rd will have to grow by between 50,000 and 60,000 residents. To put that in perspective, that means adding another chunk of territory about like Warren County.
But with every other district Upstate also needing to expand, a big squeeze is coming at us, as Joe LoTemplio concludes in the Plattsburgh Press Republican.
The loss of two congressional seats for New York state could mean a dramatic shift in the North Country.
Equally vulnerable to change will be the NY-20 district, which already stretches more than 200 miles from Saranac Lake to Poughkeepsie.
Tags: census, politics, redistricting
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Maybe, in an effort to stop the redistricting game, we should just do away with Congress and just have the Senate.
It would save some money and put all states on an equal footing.
Except some states are much bigger than others. Why should Alaska should have the same voice as NY?
If you did away with Congressmen and left just the Senate we’d have a bigger mess than now. Trying to concentrate power in smaller numbers always ends badly. Finding the proper balance is difficult, but I’d much rather see 2000 Congressmen having their say than just 100 Senators.
Regardless it will be bad for the North Country. Unless they could combine 20 and 23 or somehow create a district that was all North country. What I mean is that from my travels and work it seems that Clinton, Essex, Franklin, Hamilton, St. Lawrence, Jefferson and Lewis counties have much in common socially and economically and would make a good district. What would be bad is if they split us down the middle and combined us with Albany on the East and Syracuse on the West. In that case we would become invisible politically.
Ironically (to me at least), Aubertine’s loss may be good in the long run for the North Country. Since the Republicans now control the NYS Senate, there may be a constituency to preserve NY – 23 by absorbing adjacent (Republican-leaning) North Country parts of NY – 20. Thus NY-23 will remain a ‘North Country’ district.
If the Senate had remained in Democratic Party control, it seems to me more likely that NY-23 and NY-20 would be reconfigured so that Democratic Party-leaning parts of Syracuse and Albany are added to the respective districts, making them more likely to go D. In that case, North Country political influence in Washingtin would be severely weakened.
NY-20 is already a nightmare district, it seems obvious that it would be reconfigured. It might make sense to carve a portion into NY-23. Warren County has traditionally been a political power base Upstate but thing are changing and putting it into Owen’s district might stem any idea of Murphy challenging Gibson next term.
So what will happen to Gibson? There are some cherries in the district–Saratoga among them–and some pits. There might be a strong push to fold Saratoga into an adjoining district
The big loss in population in NY is in the western part of the state so logically they would lose a district and if Gibson hadn’t won I would say the NY-20 would be a likely target to cut up. NY-23 is so large you might think it would be eliminated but with Gibson living south of Albany giving him more of the north would be difficult for him to hold. It will be very interesting to see how the politics unfold on this.