From the Legislative Gazette.

As the 10-year redistricting process for New York draws near, more attention is being paid to proposals for improving the process used to determine how Senate, Assembly and congressional district lines are drawn in the state.

Last week the Nelson Rockefeller Institute of Government and the League of Women Voters held a forum in Albany to discuss legislative redistricting.

The panel, which consisted of Assemblyman Daniel Burling, R-Warsaw; Assemblyman William Parment, D-North Harmony; counsel to Sen. Martin Malave Dilan, D-Brooklyn, Jeffrey Wice; Blair Horner, New York Public Interest Research Group legislative director; and Gerald Benjamin, who was named a distinguished professor of political science and now serves as director of the SUNY New Paltz Center for Regional Research Education and Outreach, pointed out different ways to make redistricting more fair.

Horner indicated support for a Senate bill (S.1614) sponsored by David Valesky, D-Oneida, that would amend the state legislative law to create an 11-member reapportionment commission. The leaders of the minority and majority conferences in both house of the Legislature would name eight of those members. Each leader would get two appointments. Those members, in turn, would appoint the other three people, one of whom would serve as chair of the commission.

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Here’s one for those of you follow redistricting and census matters.   In short, this prison based gerrymandering uses prison population figures as part of the line drawing process for districts where the prisons are located.  From the Albany Times Union:

A group of three upstate Democrats whose districts include or are near large prison populations have found themselves pitted against mostly downstate urban senators who want to exclude inmate counts from redistricting, which will start next year.

Concerns by upstate Democrats Bill Stachowski, David Valesky and Darrel Aubertine about the push to end what advocates call prison-based gerrymandering provides an up-close example of how Senate Democrats, who are clinging to power with a 32-30-vote majority, remain split on many issues.

The latest rift opened last week when a coalition of groups rallied behind a bill sponsored by Manhattan Sen. Eric Schneiderman.

The measure would let New York exclude inmate counts from legislative districts when the state conducts its once-a-decade redistricting.

Traditionally, the redistricting, which results in heavy gerrymandering, relies on U.S. Census data for the population counts.

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