Putting forward a new election legislation

Minority Leader Kevan M. Abrahams and his Minority Caucus colleagues in the Nassau County Legislature are proposing fundamental reforms that will restructure and democratize the way Nassau citizens elect their Legislators.

Minority Leader Abrahams encouraged Presiding Officer Richard Nicolello to endorse the formation of an Independent Redistricting Commission during a press conference at the Theodore Roosevelt Executive & Legislative Building on Wednesday, August 12. The Commission would be responsible for drawing new legislative district borders in a way that promotes equitable representation and safeguards residents voting rights, regardless of race, nationality, religion, or socioeconomic background.

According to Minority Leader Abrahams’ plan, the nine-member committee would be delegated with drawing up a redistricting plan that maintains the boundaries of incorporated villages, cities, and towns while creating 19 districts that are geographically compact and contiguous. The 2020 Census data will be used to create the new maps, which will be used for the first time in the 2023 legislative elections. After that, the process would repeat every 10 years.

“The creation of an independent redistricting commission will liberate Nassau County voters from decades of election districts which exist primarily to advance the political interests of entrenched machine politicians over the interests of the people,” Minority Leader Abrahams said. “Because voters will have real choices in competitive elections, it will no longer be safe for elected officials to ignore the interests of large segments of Nassau County’s electorate. To oppose this bill is to sacrifice the common good of the people in Nassau in favor of the selfish interests of the few.”

Independent redistricting is a major element of efforts to remedy widespread gerrymandering, which was designed by political parties to pack Democratic and Republican voters into districts, respectively, in order to protect incumbents from real electoral threats. This hyper-partisan redistricting procedure disproportionately harmed majority-minority communities within the County.

“Independent redistricting commissions help develop plans outside the Legislature and can help prevent the kind of gerrymandering that the public rejects. The criteria in this legislation will strengthen Nassau’s ability to enact legislative districts that better reflect communities. The bitter partisan processes that we’ve seen in the past should not be allowed to continue,” said nationally recognized redistricting expert Jeffrey M. Wice, a New York Law School Adjunct Professor and Senior Fellow.

A detailed examination of statistics dating back to the first Legislature election in 1995 finds that the present map-drawing method has produced a succession of elections in which incumbents have won around 95 percent of contested races.

“As Nassau County and the nation continue to engage with the most urgent civil rights debate of our generation, we are reminded that the most fundamental of all civil rights is the sanctity of the right to vote,” Minority Leader Abrahams said. “However, the right to vote means very little if the outcome of elections is rigged by partisan gerrymandering of legislative districts. This is a bill that will restore full voting rights in Nassau and ensure that all communities will have a meaningful voice in elections. This means that their voices will also be heard by government officials who make the crucial decisions that affect their lives.”