Dance of the Districts

Political Panel Praises

Partisan Redistricting,

Solons Are Discomfited

At Koch Remonstrance

The reapportionment dance took a few steps forward and backward today as LATFOR (The New York State Legislative Task Force on Demographic Research) held a public hearing in lower Manhattan. The committee has been traveling around the state to hear from the public, but that is no indication that they will respond to the complaints that have been received from academics, good government groups and potential candidates.

The first grievance, which has been expressed by speakers who caught the road show before it arrived in New York City, was that LATFOR should not exist all, but that an independent redistricting commission should be appointed, rather than leaving the task to the assembly of incumbents now conducting the hearings and charged with preparing a plan for the approval of the Legislature, the body that will be affected by the plan.

The reformers want to prevent self-serving partisan districting, which fulfills the desires of a political party at the expense of non-members of that party. They want nonpartisan districting, either this year by law or permanently by Constitutional amendment. The incumbents' idea of avoiding one-party favoritism is bi-partisan districting, which serves the needs of both the Democratic and Republican parties, at the expense of challengers and independents of all stripes.

The star witness at the hearing was former Mayor Edward I. Koch, co-founder of New York Uprising, which is a coalition of former public officials favoring independent non-political districting. Click here to read Mayor Koch's testimony, an informative review of current state of efforts to draw fair lines.

Under the Constitution of the United States, a census of the population is taken every ten years, and the results determine the apportionment of seats in Congress. Because of New York State's comparatively slow growth, it will lose two seats as a result of the 2010 census. The usual political tradition when New York loses two seats has been to take one upstate Republican seat and one downstate Democratic seat. The situation has been complicated since 2010 by the departure of three members of Congress from New York State because of sexual misconduct, in three cases different from each other and all involving unrequited desires.

The custom in New York has been for the Democrats to draw Assembly district lines and the Republicans the Senate lines. For seats in Congress, the parties had to reach agreement on district boundaries. Because of changing demographics and social attitudes, the Republican hold on the Senate has becoming ever more tenuous. A law adopted when the Senate was in Democratic hands changed the districts that would benefit from the head count of inmates from the upstate counties were they were incarcerated, providing employment to local residents, to the downstate counties where they lived while committing the crimes, largely, felonies that resulted in their being sent upstate.

Some people want the Democrats to win both houses, so responsibility for whatever happens or does not happen can be placed on one party. Others prefer a divided legislature, so that conservatives as well as liberals will be heard. A number of players publicly prefer domination by their own party, but their private opinion is another matter. Common sense tells us that moderate government is more likely to be achieved under diverse leadership than when the legislature is under the control of one party. A political system dominated by either party tends to reduce the importance of general elections and increase the effect of party primaries, where the more extreme members of each party have proportionately greater influence, in part because independents are forbidden to vote.

Redistricting will be an important issue in the months to come, and much will said on the subject. The argument is not ideological, the left against the right, the spenders against the savers, or liberals against social conservatives. The issue here is one of equity and fairness, of expressing the wishes of the people, as opposed to those in both parties who would manipulate the system, deny ballot access to challengers, preserve incumbents by any means available, and place individual legislators under the thrall of the legislative leadership, where any expression of autonomy is punished.

The New York State legislature, periodically derided as the most dysfunctional in the United States, has earned its ill repute, not only through acts of dishonesty by members of both houses, some of which have resulted in prison sentences, but by an arbitrary system of rules and protective walls around the leadership, so that although the great majority of the members are honest, there is precious little they can accomplish without the consent of men who, to put it politely, are more responsive to special interests and individual desires, often paid for by political contributions.

To allow the leaders to retain the power to choose their followers by drawing their districts condemns the backbenchers to little more authority than their constituents, who may decennially be moved like cattle from one district to another to serve the political interests of those whose lack of responsibility and desire for re-election have helped give rise to the state's now acute financial problems.

Do not take this commentary as indicating that any particular legislator is better or worse than any other. Some considered paragons of virtue may never have been subject to temptation. Others usually reviled are not only smarter than most others but are better politicians. And when people elected to high office as reformers are found to have several screws loose which prevent positive interaction with other people, the distinction between intellect and insanity becomes difficult to find.

But regardless of their intellect, ability, integrity or state of rage, all public officials should run in honestly drawn districts, equal in size, compact and contiguous, and linking communities by interest. Political boundaries should not be perpetrated on the public by self-serving incumbents, who have systematically manipulated the electoral system to serve their personal needs at the expense of the public interest in honest government.

Adam and Steve

Gay Marriage Squeezes By, 33-29,

Tax Limit, Rent Bills Approved,

Sweet Corn Is State Vegetable.

Our last column, sent out late Friday afternoon, reported that the Legislature had not reached a decision on the major issues before it: rent control, property tax cap and gay marriage. The Senate also voted to name sweet corn the state vegetable. It defeated the onion by 56-6, with six downstate Democrats dissenting, including Liz Krueger.

Shortly thereafter, the dam burst and the bills involving money: extension of rent stabilization and a 2 per cent cap on property tax increases were approved overwhelmingly. Gay marriage was considered in the late evening. In the rush to make the 11 p.m. news programs and get the bill signed by Governor Cuomo before midnight, many legislators were not allowed to make statements explaining their votes, which would have been their moment in the sun.

The Gotham Gazette reported the gory details of the silencing and confinement of Senators, including Kevin Parker of Brooklyn, who is known for his fierce temper and physical confrontations with others. The story, a unique narrative of what actually happened on and off the floor, is worth reading here. Although Parker is reported to have cursed out the governor, he did not beat up anybody, although he was justifiably angry at being denied the right to explain his vote to his community, which is divided on the issue of gay marriage.

Some Legislative History

When I was first elected to the City Council in 1973, I signed on as a co-sponsor of what was called the "gay rights bill", which had been introduced in 1971 but had not even received the courtesy of a hearing by a Council committee. The bill would have prohibited discrimination in housing, employment and public accommodation because of sexual orientation. Its opponents at the time said that passing this bill would lead to gay marriage. We responded that this was simply a civil rights bill and had nothing to do with gay marriage, which at the time was inconceivable.

Mayor Koch led the way to equality by issuing executive orders in January 1978, the first month he was in office, which prohibited the City and its agencies from discriminating in any way against gays and lesbians. But for the prohibition to apply to the much larger private sector, legislation was necessary that required City Council approval.

Despite pleas from the mayor, Council Majority Leader Thomas J. Cuite refused to allow the gay rights bill to come to the Council floor. He made his opposition, based on his intense religious belief, very clear. He is said to have gone as far as reaching the father of Councilman Thomas J. Manton of Queens (1932-2006) to implore his son not to support the bill. Manton, a former police officer and a future Congressman from Queens and Democratic county leader, yielded to his father's request. Manton was just one Councilmember, but an influential one throughout his long career.

The Roman Catholic Church was more politically powerful a generation ago than it is today in New York. Under the leadership of Francis Cardinal Spellman (1889-1967), the church wielded enormous influence in political circles. Spellman had publicly quarreled in 1956 with Eleanor Roosevelt over a movie, "Baby Doll", starring Carroll Baker, which he called 'sinful'. The fact that some clerics engaged in homosexual acts only seemed to intensify the church's opposition to any legislation in this area.

In 1985, Cuite retired. He was succeeded by Councilman Peter F. Vallone of Queens. As part of the negotiations over the leadership, in which Mayor Koch took part, Vallone promised to allow the gay rights bill to come to the Council floor for a vote, although he was personally opposed to it. He kept his word and on March 21, 1986, fifteen years after it was introduced, the bill was approved by the City Council, 21 to 14, and subsequently signed by Mayor Koch.

A Federal non-discrimination bill was first introduced in the House of Representatives in 1974 by Congresswoman Bella Abzug and Edward Koch, who served nine years in Congress before he was elected mayor in 1977, defeating Mario Cuomo in a runoff, after Mayor Abe Beame, Ms. Abzug, Percy Sutton and Herman Badillo were eliminated in the first round of voting. Thirty-four years ago, we seem to have had more distinguished candidates for mayor than the current field of aspirants. The Daily Kos reports that the anti-discrimination bill was once again introduced by Congressman Barney Frank of Massachusetts in March 2011. Its prospects remain dim in the national legislature.

Importance of the Event

The enormous satisfaction the gay community has demonstrated in the last two days is based on the end of what they regarded as the final legal impediment imposed by New York State to full citizenship. They called the cause "Marriage Equality". The bill was supported by many in the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) community who have no intentions or immediate prospects of marriage, but want the same rights that straight people take for granted.

There are ten nations which allow same-sex marriage, according to CBC (the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation). They are Argentina, Belgium, Canada, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, South Africa, Spain and Sweden. Denmark and other countries, including France, are not included because they allow same-sex partnerships but not marriages. It was a surprise to see the full list; it contains countries on every continent except Asia and Australia.

The passage of this bill will not end discrimination and violence against gays. In some places homosexuality is still a crime, punishable by death by stoning. Nor would gay marriage necessarily win popular referenda today in most states. It is ironic that in a California vote gay marriage won in white communities but was defeated by black and Latino voters. Not all minorities are supportive of other minorities, but ethnicity and victimization should not be a basis for people to make decisions on what many, on each side, consider an issue of faith, morals and civil rights.

I support marriage equality, in part because I know people who love each other and should be allowed to commit themselves, and assume the protections and the burdens of marriage. In principle, capacity to reproduce should not be a requirement for couples - many people choose not to have children or are unable to do so. With 300 million Americans and millions more seeking to enter this country, there is no risk of running out of people if gays are allowed to marry.

Also, sexual preference is known to be ingrained; it is rarely a matter of voluntary choice. There was a time, until 1967 and the Loving v. Virginia case, that states could prohibit marriage between people of different races. Today, a child of such a marriage is President of the United States. Who can say that some time in the future, a President will have been born to and reared by a gay or lesbian couple?

Finally, it is somewhat gratifying to see New York State resume its historic role as a place of legislative initiative on social issues. Credit goes to Governor Cuomo and the State legislative leadership in both parties. We hope that the success in securing marriage equality will lead to further accomplishments in Albany. As you know, we have frequently been disappointed, but this year we do appear to have a functioning, intelligent and mature governor.

It can make an enormous difference, if our leaders work together and stay on track. They have shown the capacity to do so, now we look to them for performance.

Judgment Day

Legislature Brooded All Week,

But Has Yet to Lay Any Eggs;

Friday Eve, Low Expectations

We have been waiting all week for the Legislature to act on the major matters before it, which are supposed to be concluded by the end of this session.

It is late Friday afternoon and we believe that our writing week and your working week are likely to close before the unresolved, or secretly resolved but unpublished, issues are brought to a vote in Albany.

The New York State Legislature is not, however, the only deliberative body unable to reach prompt agreement on matters that await its consideration. For example, the United States Congress and the Obama administration are nowhere close to a method of dealing with the crisis when the national debt runs up against its statutory limit, now about 14 Trillion 294 Billion dollars. This is expected to occur on Tuesday, August 2.

Fortunately, the date can be manipulated slightly more than the date the next asteroid will strike Earth, with cataclysmic consequences. (BTW, and to his credit, it was former Congressman Anthony Weiner who did his best some years ago to get funds for asteroid research in the Federal budget, for which he was ridiculed at the time. Wait until the Last Days, when Congress will wish they had listened.)

At any rate, the date of the collision with the debt limit is now 39 days away, and the news stories are about people pulling out of negotiations, rather than joining in to solve the problem. One reason for this is that you get just as big a story by saying 'No' as saying 'Yes' to anything, and you're not responsible for a tax that doesn't happen. Another reason is that it is considered too early to appear weak - the rule of the playground.

Inability to agree does not stop at our nation's borders. The Iraqi democracy that we installed at great cost (Trillions of dollars and Thousands of American lives) has been paralyzed by internal rivalries, some over twelve hundred years old. The European Union is plagued by the inability or unwillingness of Greece and other countries to balance their budgets and reduce entitlements. The forces that drive people and nations apart are often based on greed or self-protection, which are two sides of the same coin. What is self-protection if I do it is greed if you do it.

The paralysis caused by inability to reach agreement is a world-wide problem. Democracy is not a cultural tradition in most of the planet we inhabit. We didn't have it ourselves before two centuries ago, and even then it was limited to white male property owners. Our sincere efforts to encourage and propagate democracy remind one to some extent of the labors of Christian missionaries who went to darkest Africa in the Nineteenth Century to spread the Word of the Lord by converting the natives to European religions. Those preachers of the Gospel had considerable influence in some countries, and probably did more good than harm, however they have endured in modern popular culture only in images of their being boiled in large pots before being devoured by the natives, and in the phrase 'the missionary position', now part of our language.

The more one leaves the prism of New York City and State and looks at the outside world, the easier it is to conclude that human behavior is to a greater extent based on primal instinct rather than European Enlightenment, a period which was unfortunately interrupted by World Wars I and II, where modern technology was put to use to kill people on a wider scale and more efficiently than in previous or future conflicts, say Rwanda, where people of the minority tribe (the Tutsis) had to be trapped in their huts which were set afire, or hacked to death one by one with machetes.

The conclusion one is tempted to reach after this extremely brief survey of human conflict in recent years, is that perhaps the Albany circus is not quite as bad as we think, compared with other methods of dispute resolution. Even though most of the players are narcissists and some are also thieves, the damage they can do to any of us common folk is limited by the state Constitution, as interpreted by the Court of Appeals.

There will always be squabbles over the allocation of government resources, and the role of the state in taking from one group (homeowners and other taxpayers, large and small) for the benefit of other specific groups (state employees, Medicaid recipients, prisoners and their guards). The political parties represent somewhat different slices of the economic spectrum, so some disagreement is inevitable and predictable. That's why we have elections.

Without giving any of these characters a pass on anything, and with some amazement that the human rights issue of gay marriage (whether one likes it or not), became a tail to economic disputes primarily involving state employees, we reserve judgment until the elected officials finish their deliberations. There will be plenty to write about then.

Philosophical Addendum

Since the preference of the Almighty has been raised so frequently in the gay marriage dispute, we venture to offer two thoughts on the subject by someone who has no unique knowledge of the issue.

If the Lord had meant for two people of the same gender to reproduce, s/he would have made that physically possible.

If the Lord had meant for two people of the same gender never to mate, s/he would have made that act physically impossible or at best extremely unpleasant for both partners.

These questions have been decided by Nature, and whether or not same-sex couples are allowed to marry will not affect Nature's Laws, which are frequently attributed to God since they were surely not made up by humans.

Calendar Issues

Weekend consideration of legislation may be affected by the fact that Speaker Sheldon Silver is a Sabbath observer, while sundry other legislators consider Sunday to be the Lord's Day, which may or may not be an appropriate time to make laws. Since the longest day of the year (the summer solstice) came just two days ago, the sun will set later this Friday than on any other Sabbath. The internet (timeanddate.com, successors to the almanacs) tells us that the sun will set this evening at 8:31 p.m. We do not know at this time what effect that fact will have on deliberations.

In negotiations where agreement is close but has not yet been reached, it has become customary to stop the clock, so as to postpone strike deadlines until remaining problems are resolved. But those are earthly clocks, and we do not know whether the Heavenly clock may be held in abeyance, even by the Most Dysfunctional Legislature in the United States.

However, the Sabbath rules have exemptions for works of necessity, or the saving of a life, so it is possible that the authorities would countenance the legislative session stretching into the prescribed Day of Rest. Although Speaker Silver deserves credit for helping Jonathan Lippman to become Chief Judge of the State of New York, and a wise judge he is turning out to be, we cannot reckon the Speaker's influence with the Heavenly Court which presumably decides matters of this magnitude.

Enjoy the weekend.





StarQuest #764 6.24.2011 1204 words