BREAKING: Judge rejects Republican inmate redistricting lawsuit
This afternoon, state Supreme Court Judge Eugene Devine tossed out a suit filed by state Senator Betty Little — and other GOP leaders — that aimed to overturn a Democratic law that changed the way prison inmates are counted in political redistricting.
The change, approved during a brief period when Democrats controlled the state legislature, will strip thousands of people from Republican districts, shifting those populations in most cases to Democratic-leaning areas downstate.
That will force Republican districts to expand geographically.
Republicans claimed that the change was an attempt to help gerrymander political districts to disadvantage GOP politicians, including Little.
The judge rejected that argument, finding that even if the change was politically motivated it was still legally valid.
Republicans issued a statement saying that they would review the decision, “but regardless of the final outcome of this lawsuit Republicans will expand our majority in the Senate next year.”
Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, a Democrat who was in the state Senate when the controversial measure passed, praised the decision.
“Today’s decision by Judge Devine is a victory for fundamental fairness and equal representation. The court affirmed the legality of counting incarcerated individuals in their home communities for the purposes of redrawing district lines, rather than the districts where they are in prison. As a lawmaker, I fought to end the practice of prison-based gerrymandering that distorted the democratic process and undermined the principle of ‘one person, one vote.’ This decision affirms and applies a fair standard to the drawing of state legislative districts and makes it easier for counties to do the same by providing them with an accurate data set.”
It remains unclear how this change will affect the district boundaries here in the North Country. They could shift Little’s district, but also Assembly and state Senate districts in the St. Lawrence Valley with large inmate populations.
NCPR will have more on this story Monday morning during the 8 O’clock Hour.
Tags: politics, redistricting
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It’s time for the Democrats to finish what started in 2008. Push the Republicans into ancient history and other irrelevant topics.
I dream of a day when elections are fought between Democrats, Greens, and the Progressive parties, over issues of wind versus hydro, single payer versus mandatory insurance, military versus Peace Corps.
What I truly dislike is the very idea that if you belong to this or that political party or any of the “organized religions,” you are supposed to accept all opinions, ideas and dogma coming down from on high.
If we have intelligent and informed voters (and elected officials), it shouldn’t matter what party has a majority.
So draw your stupid lines however you want to draw them and I will vote or not vote depending upon the choices offered. If there isn’t a choice, well sorry to say, I never vote for anyone who is running unopposed.
Vote the person, not the party.
It’s not gerrymandering to count prisoners at the prison they are living in. In fact, that is the purpose of the census: to count people where they are living at the date the Census is taken, not where they might live in the future or where they lived in the past.
While you’re right, Scratchy, prisoners fit mighty awkwardly into the notion of proportional political representation. What can a local representative do to address the interests of the prisoner population in their prison’s district?
It is a form of gerrymandering to move tens of thousands of people far from their place of usual residence and then count them there. Especially when you consider that building prisons in far flung areas can be used as a political sop and as a means to punish the inmates’ families as well as the inmates themselves.
A local representative can respond to letters by inmates.
Prison is supposed to be punishment. Also real estate and wages are less expensive for the state in the north country than they are in NYC (where land is scarce).
prisoners don’t vote.
I would be in favor of counting the prisoners if they were allowed to vote. If they wont be allowed to vote, maybe not count them at all for district purposes?
Added thought. Maybe not count for district purposes anyone who can’t vote, such as children under 18.
This makes sense, inmates should be counted where they last resided (and as such were last able to vote), inmates cannot vote from the jail/prison.
Maybe Senator Little should try to get voting rights for inmates, and then try to repeal the new system.