By Carol Tannenhauser
Every 10 years, states change their Congressional district lines to reflect the new Census. Redistricting, as it’s called, is a messy and very political process, but the good-government group Common Cause says the new lines should at least keep “communities of interest” together, so people with similar concerns and goals will be able to pool their political power.
No disrespect to our friends across the park, but imagine my shock and dismay upon discovering Monday morning that my new congressional district, i.e. community of interest, is likely to be…the Upper East Side!
The new lines, as shown in maps that have not yet been fully approved, may shock other Upper West Siders as well, because several blocks of the neighborhood have been redistricted into a revised district that includes the Upper East Side. If the new congressional district map is approved — and it’s likely to be, according to several sources — the strip from West 59th to West 84th Street, from Columbus Avenue to Central Park West will be affected.
“Newly proposed congressional maps drawn by Democrats released Sunday night would have neighborhood residents living between West 59th and 84th Streets east of Columbus Avenue voting with the Upper East Side’s District 12,” Patch reported.
I was distraught and outraged; moreso when I read the following passage in The New York Times:
…Mr. Nadler’s district needed to grow in Brooklyn this cycle because he handed over turf he had long represented on the Upper West Side near Central Park and around Greenwich Village to help Ms. Maloney, his neighbor in the 12th District.
He handed over turf he had long represented on the Upper West Side… Jerry did? Our congressman since the dawn of day? He gave us away? We were a strip full of voters of a certain sort that he handed off to Upper East Side Representative Carolyn Maloney to aid in her reelection.
“Where will we vote?” my husband asked, ever practical. Ever existential, my question was: if we vote on the Upper East Side, does that make us Upper East Siders? At the very least, it separates us from our true community of interest. It’s hard enough to gain acceptance as a “real” Upper West Sider without having a different congressional district.
Democrats might say we’re doing it for the cause. Though they’re not supposed to be, districts are drawn to help politicians win (or lose) elections, by including or excluding certain blocks of voters. Maloney got a gift of voters likely to support her. Said the Times:
Ms. Maloney is facing her third primary challenge from the left in three election cycles. By shifting her district farther west, the mapmakers removed parts of progressive hotbeds in Brooklyn and Queens that have supported her challengers, theoretically easing Ms. Maloney’s path to re-election in the safely Democratic seat.
That is how redistricting works. As stated, it is a once-in-a-decade process, following the Census, of adjusting districts lines according to population changes. The practice of orchestrating districts to affect election outcomes is known as “gerrymandering.”
Never has the term seemed more fitting.
Whoever drew the map clearly can’t tell east from west lol. No thank you I’ll stick to uws.
A Congressional district map is not intended to make a distinction between neighborhood names or East/West street-naming conventions. Fixating on an arbitrary geographic element is futile to evaluating the effectiveness of drawing a district.
I’m convinced that most people are not aware of the geography of the 10th district which snakes all the way to Bensonhurst and includes neighborhoods that many would not identify with.
This seems wrong and ridiculous. Hope it doesn’t get approved but sounds like it will.
I understand trying to maximize D seats to counter Republican gerrymandering, but we did not need to re-draw the districts with the goal of ensuring that Maloney (or anyone else) can beat a Democratic primary challenger and remain in power indefinitely. That takes it too far, and I don’t think most New York State voters would support that goal.
I live in this slice of the UWS and like any informed voter, I will be researching ALL of the candidates running in the primary for that seat.
You and me sir. Perhaps an email to some of these same politicians might be in order. Thanks for your comment.
This is why some states have passed reforms that stop politicians from drawing their own districts, passing it to nonpartisan committees. The system works a little better when the voters pick the politicians, and a lot worse when the politicians pick their voters.
NY State created a “non-partisan” commission. It has been an absolute disaster. Someone who knows more can correct me, but as I understand it, the commission is half D, half R. The default if they can’t reach an agreement is that the governing majority then gets to make the rules. So the D’s have no incentive to play ball.
Also, as noted, there is a lot of lobbying by incumbents to draw the districts in a way that further protects them. As a moderate D, I wish that AOC’s district could be redrawn to put someone more moderate in that seat, but it ain’t gonna happen.
Half D & half R is BI-partisan, not NON-partisan. The difference is crucial. BI-partisan bodies represent the interests of the two major parties, not the voters. The BI-partisan redistricting commission was designed to fail, so that the legislature would retain the redistricting power that they’ve always had. This was a big FU to the voters.
It has always been a routine occurrence that multiple neighborhoods are combined in a Congressional district which represents ~750K people. To think that the UWS, with ~200K people, would get its own district is fundamentally impossible. I don’t understand why being together with the UES merits such amazement or alarm considering that we already have people from much more differing neighborhoods in our district.
The issue isn’t that the UWS should gets its own Congressional District. As you correctly note, given the size of Congressional Districts that is impossible.
The issue is that the UWS should be in a single Congressional District. ( Although, I viscerally agree, you can certainly argue the opposite.)
This is…. annoying. It feels like a slice of the UWS (alas the one I also live in) has just been lopped off. Puns about “Jerrymandering” aside, this isn’t great.
It is truly amazing how much time and money is invested in drawing these districts. Every person should be put in a computer without any label attached regarding gender, race, party registration, or whatever else. A number of academics have created programs that then draw the lines to be as efficient as possible, i.e. compact and contiguous. The results will never be perfect, but they would be a lot better.
Unfortunately, if one side gerrymanders, the other side also has to do so. And the courts refuse to do anything to stop this. So here we are.
This is actually a lot less convoluted than some of the other districts I’ve seen. And if I recall, the UWS is carved up in a ridiculous way for state senate and other offices.
There goes the ‘hood.
Is anyone going to live better the day after this election? 5 years after the election?
Asking for a friend (who’s confused about the “point” of politicians).
I wouldn’t vote for Carolyn Maloney if my life deprnded on it.
Only reason why they took Nadler from us is because the establishment Democrats are scared of Rana Abdelhamid.
Interesting issue: the mainstream Dems are banding together to repel the AOC Dems. Note the assumption they’ve made about the piece of the UWS they’re moving: that it will be more conservative, and therefore more incumbent-friendly, than the pieces of BK/QNS they’ve traded it for. So much for the liberal UWS.
At any rate, this is just about one race and has nothing to do with any other: State Reps, State Senate, City Council, etc… all unaffected by this.
I’m a Democrat. This entire process is so patently undemocratic that it is disgraceful. Political parties/partisanship should be miles away from any such key electoral process, full stop.
Have they no shame? Does anyone care?
What a political scam! Nadler and the Dems are at it again. Jerrymandering.
We are not Eastsiders!
You’re a Red Hooker? A Bay Ridger?
So now people on the UWS will have to go over to the east side to get to a polling place?
If that’s the case, I’ll bet that half of these “vote” that Nader thinks he rigged won’t be bothered to make the trip.
Complete stupidity-
No, of course not.
There will be polling places like every 10 blocks or so like there have been since forever. Probably even the same places they are now.
District 10 has been gerrymandered (or Jerrymandered) beyond belief for years. The proposed Tenth District would take 55 minutes to drive from one end to the other (with tolls), 6 h 23 min to walk, 1h 28 minutes by subway, and 1h 51 minutes by bicycle. At its narrowest, it would take 2 minutes to cross by foot. I have never known anyone who lived in Bensonhurst and I have never been there. I do know people who live between CPW and Columbus.
As usual, more gaslighting from the New York Times! I wager that the shift westward of Maloney’s district has as much to do with blunting the Republican wave that will undoubtedly sweep over even blue, blue NYC and potentially causing Maloney to lose to a Republican. A far worse fate to Democrats than losing to a “progressive”.
New York is now a one party state, like North Korea, Cuba and California. The Democrats can do whatever they like and they will. Get used to it.
There are odd assignments in the Assembly map, too.
Ten years ago, a few blocks bordering on Morningside Drive (123-122, 121-118, 115-114) were pulled from AD 69, which covers every other address considered Morningside Heights, and put in AD 70. The border line of the two districts crosses back and forth to Morningside Drive four times. Local Democratic club members thought the few blocks would be reassigned. But a look today at the legislature’s map (redistrictingandyou.org) show no change. We’re out of the way and pretty much an after thought for the current office holder — and who can blame her. Letters to Assembly Member and to the executive director of the IRC didn’t help. A state committee member’s testimony to the redistricting commission focused on the congressional district—again, we were overlooked.
Thanks for letting me express frustration, West Side Rag!
As a Democrat on the Jerrymandered district I will not vote for Nadler’s choice of candidate. Not now not ever. My vote is mine to do with as I please. That is what I always thought before. JERRY, you have lost me.
No wonder no one trusts polititians
on either side. I don’t like gerrymandering by Republicans and I don’t like it when the Democrats do it to counter the Republicans with a manipulation, especially when it makes a mockery of the ideas of communities electing representatives that truly represent their geographic area
.
Until a voting rights law on the Federal level is passed that outlaws gerrymandering you play with the hand you are dealt and the rules in play. If the GOP is going to do it as much as they do it in GOP states — like breaking Nashville up into 3 pieces to dilute the Blue House seat then it’s fair game for Democrats to do the same.
The way to deal with it is to change the law and level the playing field. I see no reason to go into a fight with one hand tied behind my back for altruistic reasons.
This!
Congressional districts usually represent many “neighborhoods” and are not drawn with neighborhood borders in mind. Nadler, after all, represents parts of Brooklyn as well as the west side of Manhattan. That encompasses many different neighborhoods and interests. But he represents at a federal level, with federal interests in mind. State senators and assembly people as well as city council members are more involved in local matters.
It is interesting that Democrats chose to gerrymander to protect incumbents in areas where the seat is safe for Democrats. I suspect in upstate areas the focus is on creating more Democratic districts so as to unseat Republicans.
Machine politics at its best (or worst). But it will counter opposing efforts in places like Texas and North Carolina, so it’s strategic.
1) Architectural critic Paul Goldberger decades ago called CPW really a part of the UES – due to incomes. One can assume those folks will have to cross the park to vote.
2) The Jerrynadlermandering of CD 10 is quite extraordinary. Just look at the umbilicus linking the Manhattan & Brooklyn legs, the latter of which is much more conservative.
3) We can, at least in part, thank Manchinema for this latest iteration of abstract expressionism.
“Jerry did? Our congressman since the dawn of day? He gave us away?”
Love that plaintive tone. Now I’m feeling a little abandoned, too.
And also – ugh. We are NOT Upper East Siders. Very different culture.
That said, I just looked up Maloney’s record and she looks great. I’d definitely vote for her.
Calling Ms. Maloney an Assemblymember is an article typo though, right? We can live with the change as long as they don’t mess with our Assembly district.
It sounds like you’re no more a Borough Parker than you’re an Upper East Sider. Yet you’ve been in the same district for ages. Why so much focus on just the UES? I think there’s not much difference between people living on CPW than 5th Ave in many respects, especially income/wealth.
Thanks for the correction! Fixed.
Whatever has to be done to maximize the number of Democrtatic-leaning districts in NY State is fine with me. We’ve got to play the same gerrymandering game the GOP does. I read that NY may wind up eliminating 5 GOP districts this way. If reconfiguring the local districts this way helps achieve that result, I’m totally fine with it.
You say that as if only the GOP practiced gerrymandering. News flash: the Dems have been doing it, too. I’m also not a fan of justifying bad behavior by pointing to others’ bad behavior. I’d rather you admit that you’d like to gain a legal advantage.
Just imagine if former members Crowley, Engel, and Weiner were still members of congress today, the redistricing ny map would be very very different!
after looking at the map, I would say bowman is in big trouble and could lose his primary seat (ny-16)
Hey West Side Rag! I wrote the 19th comment here yesterday complaining about the few Morningside Heights blocks tacked on to Assembly District 70.
Well, guess what? The map the State Legislature approved today moved those blocks back into AD69!
Maybe complaining made a difference. Thanks again!
It is being challenged legally and hopefully defeated for the over reaching gerrymandering monstrosity it is. Link should be allowed > Lawsuit filed against Gov. Hochul, Democratic lawmakers over new congressional, state maps https://trib.al/cZybmcz