Of all the tricks that New York’s legislators use to hang on to office, the one that works best — for the politicians, that is — is redistricting. Mapmaking in Albany is a dark art form designed to make absolutely certain that incumbents in the majority party are safe from electoral competition (a k a democracy).
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This process has worked so well for so many politicians that the New York Public Interest Research Group reports that in 2008 more than half of the state’s 212 legislators were re-elected with more than 80 percent of their districts’ votes. In 57 districts, the incumbents ran unopposed. New faces appear rarely, usually when a lawmaker retires, dies or, increasingly, gets convicted of abusing the public trust.
This isn’t the way it is supposed to work.
Every 10 years, legislatures across the country draw new Congressional districts and their own districts — a clear conflict of interest. Under federal and state law, each district is supposed to have about the same number of people and be reasonably compact, but the laws are porous and many of the details are left to the states. Politicians and their experts are masters at finding loopholes — especially in New York, where gerrymandering is still rampant. ...
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