GOP redistricting plan passes, 10-8
With a single vote on May 24, the Nassau County Legislature shifted 576,000 voters out of their current legislative districts and into new ones, while also moving certain districts, such as the 3rd, across the county.
The plan would add a portion of Elmont and a large section of Franklin Square to a district dominated by Valley Stream, North Valley Stream and Floral Park. Although Elmont and a large section of Franklin Square are currently united in District 3, the new plan would separate large chunks of the two communities, and only small parts of them would remain in District 3.
Republicans control the Legislature, 11-8. The Legislature passed the redistricting plan with a 10-8 vote, and Legislator Denise Ford, a Republican from Long Beach, was the only GOP representative to vote against it. Legislator Robert Troiano, a Democrat who represents the 2nd District, was absent.
The plan, which the Legislature’s Republican majority recently crafted with help from the county attorney, John Ciampoli, drew sharp criticism from a variety of people during a May 9 hearing on the proposal. Representatives of Nassau’s African-American community said it would dilute the minority vote and potentially violate the Voting Rights Act of 1965, while Democrats said the plan represented an unlawful power grab by the GOP majority.
Mimi Pierre Johnson, president of Elmont’s Argo Civic Association, who ran for the State Assembly in the 21st District, said after the May 9 hearing that the plan was like a “slap in the face” to Elmont and its surrounding communities.
Whether the plan will survive remains to be seen. Representatives of both the Legislature’s Republican majority and Democratic minority were scheduled to return to court on May 26 for a hearing on the validity of the new maps. However, the court hearing was postponed until May 31, after Republicans claimed that State Supreme Court Justice Steven Jaeger had a conflict of interest —Jaeger served as an attorney for a Democratic elections commissioner in 1994.
On May 12, Jaeger issued a temporary restraining order against the County Legislature, effectively prohibiting the Legislature from voting on the matter. But an appellate judge overturned that decision, allowing the vote to move forward last Tuesday. If the plan stands up to court review, it will take effect in time for this year’s election in November.
Deputy County Attorney Joseph Nocella represented the county attorney’s office at the May 24 vote, filling in for Ciampoli, who was in the hospital.
Since the May 9 hearing, Republicans had tweaked the map so that South Floral Park, portions of Elmont, North Valley Stream, Valley Steam and South Valley Stream would be added to the 19th District. According to Nocello, this was done to “increase the majority/minority [distribution] of the district.”
According to the Legislature’s presiding officer, Peter Schmitt, a Republican who represents the 12th District, the changes to the redistricting map “reflect very minor changes … to accommodate the public comment.”
Schmitt said that redrawing the Legislative lines was necessary because the current population deviation –– the difference between the least and most populous districts –– now stands at 22.7 percent. According to Nocello, that deviation violates the U.S. Constitution’s equal-protection clause.
Democrats say that according to the county charter, the Legislature must follow a set procedure for redrawing district lines, which includes a series of public hearings under the direction of a bipartisan commission. They say that process is supposed to begin in 2012 and end in 2013 with a vote by the Legislature.
Schmitt, however, said that an immediate vote was needed because the current district map potentially violates the Constitution. Nocello said that lines were redrawn by a group of people in the county attorney’s office, as per Schmitt’s request. However, when asked who in the office was responsible for drawing the lines, Nocello said he did not know.
Judith Jacobs, a Democrat who represents the 16th District, was the Legislature’s presiding officer in 2003, the last time district lines were redrawn. Jacobs said that while the Democrats could have used the same “ploy” to reconfigure legislative lines in their favor 10 years ago, when they were in the majority, they used a bipartisan commission to gather information about the districts and reworked the lines two years later, after a series of public hearings.
The Legislature passed the 2003 map 19-0. “Not one time did we, 10 years ago, pit sitting legislators against each other in the same district,” Jacobs said. “This map did it in two cases. Not once did we actually remove the spine and heart from a district, and this map did it.”
Scott Brinton and Jackie Nash contributed to this story. Comments about it? DWeingrad@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000, ext. 236.
