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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC and the mayhem of New York's redistricting process continues. Heads up if you live in any of these districts. If you live in Congresswoman Yvette Clarke's district or Congressman Hakeem Jeffries' district, both in Brooklyn, they are now in the same district and presumably would have to run against each other in a primary for either one to keep their seat. Maybe you live in Sean Patrick Maloney's district in the Hudson valley or Mondaire Jones' district in Westchester and above. Sean Patrick Maloney and Mondaire Jones are now in the same district according to the latest map that's been drawn, and they would presumably have to run against each other for either to keep their seats.

Same thing with Gerald Nadler and Carolyn Maloney, in their multi borough districts in New York City. There are other examples too. Why is this happening? To catch you up, district lines are redrawn every 10 years to take into account population changes from the decennial census, takes place every 10 years. This was the first go around under the new system that was put in place in New York state, when voters approved the state constitutional amendment, giving an independent redistrict and commission first crack at the maps for Congress and the state Senate, and assembly first two cracks, actually, two cracks before it reverts back to the legislature.

Are you lost yet? You should be. That didn't work out so well is the bottom line, and when the commission deadlocked, the Democratic Party control legislature stepped in, maps were drawn by then, then two out of the three sets of maps were challenged successfully in court by Republicans, and the whole process for the state Senate and for Congress, and there's so much at stake, of course, with respect to how the district lines are drawn for Congress in this midterm election year, the whole thing was turned over to what's called the special master appointed by the New York state court of appeals. He is Carnegie Mellon political science professor, Jonathan Cervas.

He released his versions, which create strikingly different districts, not just from the ones the Democrats propose, but from the existing districts, which is why all those current members who I mentioned would have to run against each other. Now, today is the deadline for public comments before the judge in Steuben County upstate, who tossed the maps, makes a final ruling on Friday, whether to accept these new maps. It's all very confusing. It's going to pit your member of Congress against your neighboring member of Congress in many cases. There's the partisan politics side of this, control of Congress could depend on how those maps are drawn.

What does it mean if the city or wherever your community is in New York state loses a voice in Congress who has a light of seniority, like if neither Nadler or Maloney has to go? There's also the question of which voters get represented. Are you and people like you outnumbered by people with different interests who also live in your district? Congressman Jeffries tweeted this map, "viciously targets historic Black representation in New York". Also, quoting, he said, "would make Jim Crow blush". There are protections for minority representation in congressional districts under the

Voting Rights Act.

Let's take a look at as much of this as we can with Susan Lerner, Executive Director of Common Cause New York, a good government group that had drawn up its own suggested maps. Susan, welcome back to WNYC, weirdly under these circumstances.

Susan Lerner: Thanks, Brian.

Brian: Common Cause is opposed to gerrymandering where district lines are drawn, that is, to give the party in power an unfair advantage. Were you in agreement with the legislature's maps, or were you in agreement with the court at least that the original map should have been tossed?

Susan: That's a very complicated question in terms of timing, and whether it made sense at this very late, so close to the June primary to throw everything into chaos the way that it has been. There's precedent across the country in keeping less-than-ideal maps in place when they would be thrown out very close to an election because it's confusing to the voters. We are concerned at Common Cause that this entire process has not prioritized the people who count the most in our elections, and that's the voters.

Brian: Right. You have concerned about this draft proposal from the special master saying it divides "communities of interest," that's a term that's often used in redistricting conversations, and under the law, I think, communities of interest. What does that mean exactly in this context?

Susan: What that means is a community of interest is a clustering of people who live, work, and play in the same general area, who have a commonality of interest, who have the same, perhaps socioeconomic background, might share an ethnic background, but basically it is a recognition that people live, work, and play in different clusters and it's not easy to force them into little boxes with straight lines.

Brian: What are some other guidelines?

Susan: Our state constitution is actually quite clear. It sets out a series of criteria, and the first and most important criteria in the state constitution that was adopted in 2014 is that the maps have to respect the ability of racial and language minority voters to have an equal opportunity to pick a representative of their own choosing. One of the problems we have with some portions of the maps proposed by the master, and remember these are draft maps, they can be changed, is that the master appears to have prioritized the mechanical measures of compactness and not crossing county or town lines over the first criteria in our state constitution, which is respecting the rights of the minority voter.

Brian: Do you think there's a voting rights law violation in this new set of maps?

Susan: I'm sure that our partners in the Unity Map Coalition, the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, Latino Justice Center For Law, and Social Justice are looking at that question very seriously.

Brian: I did see on these new maps, that what you call compactness, seems to have been just visually to the naked eye, a high priority for this court-appointed special master who drew the maps. The term gerrymander in the first place comes from the fact that somebody for their advantage drew a district that looked like a salamander, which is weirdly shaped that doesn't seem to keep communities of interest together. This is the opposite of that. If you go up in Manhattan, it's like lower Manhattan, is all together where it was divided into several other districts before, then the middle of Manhattan, then upper Manhattan.

When you get into the Hudson Valley, the same thing, it looks very neat on a map, but now you're going to have these Hudson Valley members of Congress like Mondaire Jones and Jamal Bowman, and Sean Patrick Maloney, all scrambling to keep not as many seats as they were there before.

Susan: It's very confusing to the voters when you have these last-minute switches. That's why our constitution does say that it's important to consider maintaining the centers of the existing districts. Remember Brian, our current congressional map, the one that's in place right now, that's going to be replaced by these new lines was drawn by another special master 10 years ago under the supervision of the federal courts, and is widely accepted to have been a fair nonpartisan map that didn't advantage any political party, and which fairly represented the interest of the different communities, whether they were minority voters or not minority voters throughout the state.

It's surprising that at least in New York City, the special master didn't start with the existing districts. He seems to have thrown them out and decided that it was more important to have a map, which looks prettier to the naked eye than it is to respect the historical connections that hold people together in neighborhoods and communities

Brian: In the city, for example, Congressman Jeffries was particularly concerned that Bed-Stuy would be split between two districts, which He says it's particularly damaging to Black representation in Congress. Did you look at the Bed-Stuy situation?

Susan: Yes. The entire way in which sections of central Brooklyn and northern Brooklyn are mapped are really a bit of a head-scratcher to us. Bed-Stuy is actually cut into three. Crown Heights is cut into three. I personally live in Fort Greene and my neighborhood is cut between four different congressional districts. It really, from an on-the-ground perspective, just doesn't have very much logic to it. It's one of the problems with a process of map drawing where you have somebody who really isn't familiar at all with New York City and its neighborhoods and its communities of interest. The choices that are made really don't match the lived experience and expectations of the people and the voters on the ground.

Brian: I don't know how a pretty small geographical place like Crown Heights gets split among four districts, but there you go. You sent us a list identifying some other neighborhoods impacted by these new draft congressional maps. I'm just going to

read down this list and I'm going to invite you to pick out any one to describe in a little bit of detail for our listeners. The Islip area on Long Island. North and south versus east and west on the island. Massapequa on the south shore put in the same district as Bayside, Queens, Northeast Queens, Southeastern Queens, and Nassau County.

The Flushing area, Jackson Heights, Long Island City, Sunset Park. and Staten Island, the Northeast Bronx and Lower Westchester, Elmsford in Westchester, Kingston, Upstate. That's just a list of places. What's an interesting story from any of those?

Susan: For instance, let's start at the top. Let's talk about Kingston. Kingston is the county seat for Ulster County. It's been split into two with being on the eastern side, part of a district that spans the Hudson River and separated from the rest of Ulster County. We asked our activists and members to give us feedback on the map and to fill out a form. We're getting a lot of outraged comments about splitting Kingston not being a very good idea at all. The Northern Bronx Southern Westchester line is a very important one. That is, I think, a perfect example of how communities of interest don't adhere to where a county line is drawn.

Historically, there is a Black community that spills from the top of the Bronx into Yonkers and Southern Westchester. Those communities have a lot in common even though they cross a jurisdictional line. They tend to be low-income, highly dense, Black communities and they have very similar interests economically and in terms of policy. In the master's map, he cuts them.

Brian: Is that Jamaal Bowman's district now roughly?

Susan: That's correct. In the current map, the African American community that spans the Bronx-Westchester County line is kept together in one district. The special master cuts it on the county line. Sunset Park, I think is a really strong example of some of the problematic aspects of the congressional district lines. In Southern Brooklyn, the burgeoning Asian community is cut between four different districts, which really prevents that community from having an opportunity to choose their representative. What happens with the Latino community in Sunset Park is also interesting because currently, that community is in District 7, which is represented by Nydia Velazquez.

It spans from Brooklyn into Queens and Lower Manhattan, which creates what's called a Latino Plurality District, which gives Latino voters an equal opportunity to choose their representative. As the master has drawn District 7, it's much more compact, but it slices the Latino community. He puts the Latino community in Sunset Park into the same congressional district with Staten Island. That takes the Latino voters who are currently in a district where there's a plurality close to a majority of Latino voters and resites them into a district with only 21% Latino voters, which really has an impact on their ability to choose a representative. Those are just some of the examples on the congressional map. On the Senate map we have--

Brian: We're barely going to-- let me take some phone calls. We will touch the State

Senate map, but people's main concern certainly is representation in Congress and how these congressional lines are being redrawn right now. So many more people know their member of Congress. They know their state senator, not to say it's not important, but with control of Congress, Democrat versus Republican, so much more at stake apparently than who controls the State Senate.

This is a big, big deal. Let me stay on that to take a few phone calls for you and my guest talking about the latest wrinkle in the mess of New York State redistricting this year is Susan Lerner who runs Common Cause New York, that good government group, the New York Chapter. I haven't even given out the phone number, but our lines are full at 212-433-WNYC. Janet in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Thank you for calling in.

Janet: Good morning. I'm concerned. I live in Crown Heights. I'm concerned that two longtime politicians, you mentioned Jeffries and Yvette Clarke, are going to lose their seats. I know that Jeffries is a very strong-- he's very active in Congress. I'm scared that people who are very active and very vocal will be losing their seats including, you mentioned Nadler also is competing against somebody. I'm concerned. I don't know what's going to happen. I worked the polls and it just seems so disorganized. When are they going to have these primaries?

Brian: Great question, Janet. Thank you very much. How about the when question because this primary was originally scheduled for June 28. Apparently, the gubernatorial primary is still going to take place then and now there's going to be a separate congressional and state senate primary scheduled at the moment for August 23, but might that need to be delayed again, if there are lawsuits challenging these latest iterations of the map?

Susan: Well, Brian Common Cause New York fought for years to consolidate the primaries in June. Unfortunately, right now, we're left with a buffet of bad choices, leaving us to have a bifurcated primary season. This is a unique circumstance. We should never repeat it. Our primary should be consolidated in June in the future.

Brian: In the old days, meaning two years ago, it used to be the second Tuesday in September. At least it wasn't going into Labor Day weekend as it will be this year, late August when if there's a way to maximize people not paying attention and not turning out, I'd say put it in late August. At least coming a week after Labor Day as it did in the past, it gave people a chance once they got back to their post-summer lives, if that's really a dividing line for people's attention to get saturated with a little bit of news coverage about the primary and then turn out.

Turnout was low enough in these September primaries. Are you concerned about it being in August because I've heard some talk that there might even be a push to get it moved after Labor Day, but maybe it's too late for that?

Susan: I think it's very, very difficult to keep changing these dates around. Remember, Brian, the September primary was changed because it violates federal law. We're talking about congressional seats. The federal government went to court

to force the state to comply with the requirement that ballots be mailed to service members, so armed forces members 45 days before the election. The September primary ended up violating that law. There's relatively little flexibility under the federal law and that's why we're ending up with a dreadful date in August. We're very concerned that it is going to depress turnout.

Brian: Few more minutes on the redistricting map mess with Susan Lerner from Common Cause. Another phone call from a Brooklyner in Maryland at the moment, if I'm reading this right. Rena, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Rena: Hello, this is such an honor. I'll try to be--

Brian: That's okay. You'll be fine.

Rena: I have been in Brooklyn-- We moved to Brooklyn in 1979, Prospect Lefferts gardens. I remember voting for Yvette Clarke's mother. Then when Jeffries was first running for the City Council, he came to our house, and he sat down with us. We're a white family, and I was sold. Election day, I saw his mother near the pole. To have these two icons of Brooklyn in a-- How do you choose? We have to choose, but it's outrageous. I don't know what to do.

Brian: I hear your creed occur. I guess you're going to have to wait for the campaigns to actually start once this gets finalized, and see who's running against whom. Is that what it's going to be? I don't know if you do political analysis, as well as good government analysis, Susan, but are we going to see per se, Hakeem Jeffries and Yvette Clarke running against each other if they both want to stay in Congress?

Susan: We don't do political analysis, but that the laws regarding residency and running for Congress are relatively flexible. You don't have to be living in the district to actually run for Congress, and we do know that some of the lines that have been drawn, press reports indicate that the residence of an incumbent is literally a block or two or less than a mile from the boundary line. The candidates have choices regarding which districts they want to run in once the maps are finalized on Friday.

Brian: Bob in North Westchester, I think in defense of the maps, is that right, Bob? Hi, Brian, WNYC.

Bob: Defensive it's so much as say the other prior ones were so terrible. They were clearly drawn to protect incumbents [unintelligible 00:22:19] almost more than to protect the Democratic majority. I live in what would have been now district three, would've extended from Suffolk on Long Island all the way through Queens and the Bronx, and into Westchester. It made no sense. We have no relationship to the people there. At least, now we have some. What I was going to say this is not new. When I lived in Brooklyn, in Brooklyn Heights, it was split into three districts, Nadler, Velazquez, and I forget who was in the third district.

I could've moved two blocks either way and been in a different district. It doesn't make any sense for Jerry Nadler's district to run for a block and not even a block along the piers all the way down into lower Brooklyn. There has to be some logic to

this. [unintelligible 00:23:12] this is too compact, but certain ones proposed this year certainly had nothing to do, that was all, I believe, mainly about protecting incumbents [unintelligible 00:23:24] Suozzi's district because he was leaving. I don't know how Ms. Lerner feels about that.

Brian: Thank you. That district, that's currently a North Shore district, Northeast Queens and then along the North Shore of Nassau County and a little bit into Suffolk County, that's Suozzi's district right now, and that District 3 was going to be the one Bob is describing what some people have called the Long Island Sound district. It would have gone on that North Shore, then gone over the Whitestone in Throgs Neck Bridges, and up that Eastern Shore of the Bronx, and then into Westchester East as it continued back along the Sound. I don't know. That was for some political purpose, but that's a nonsensical district too as it was drawn at least in the caller's view.

Susan: Well, Brian, when you're drawing a map, it's like a jigsaw puzzle made up of a large number of dominoes. You make a choice in one place, and it has an impact in another. We ended up on-- the Common Cause map ended up drawing a Long Island Sound district, to my surprise, because if you're going to respect the requirements of the Voting Rights Act in our state constitution, we drew our map heavily influenced by the choices made by the representatives of minority communities in the unity map coalition, and we had to make choices in CD3.

It ended up being that we drew a Long Island Sound map because we felt that it had more coherence in terms of the communities that it held together than a map we would have had to draw, which would have started in the Astoria, and ended up in New Rochelle. Far from perfect, but you have to have trade-offs.

Brian: Yes, there's always going to be trade-offs in this, and the Nadler current district that he points out, people who live in the Upper West Side are represented by Nadler. The World Trade Center was represented by Nadler, still is, was at the time of the attack, still is. Way down into Brooklyn represented by Nadler because it's a really long, really narrow district. That was also weird in its own right 10 years ago. One more call. Jim in Morristown, you're on WNYC. Hi, Jim.

Jim: Morris Township, actually. It is strange that one judge can define the district for the whole state. My point, since I live in New Jersey not New York, is between the states, conservative states have no such constraints on their districting. They can district as they will because they don't have any fair districting laws in their constitutions. Liberal states, progressive states are more likely to have such clauses in their constitution. The whole thing means that you have more conservative representation from conservative states, but not balanced off by more liberal representation for more liberal states. It skews more conservative nationally.

Brian: Jim, thank you. We'll end on this, Susan. Do you agree with him that the reason we're going through this torturous process in New York is because as a Democratic-leaning state, there was at least an attempt to do something that had nonpartisan standards, whereas in a lot of Republican-controlled states, they don't

even try?

Susan: Unfortunately, I think the caller is right, and that's why we at Common Cause are strong advocates for a national fair redistricting standard. It's why we fought so hard for the freedom to vote, act at the congressional level because it would have set one uniform, nonpartisan, fair mapping standard for every state in the union, and that's what we need.

Brian: Now, in terms of what people can do, we're doing this today. I want to say this very clearly. Today is the final day for public comments on these maps. You can still make a public comment before the judge makes a final ruling on them on Friday. Don't just call the Brian Lehrer Show to express your dismay, if you're experiencing dismay. Susan, how do people get their comments to judge McAllister by the end of the day?

Susan: They would email their comments. Actually, it's the judge's clerk. I don't have that--

Brian: I have the email address.

Susan: You have the email, I think.

Brian: Yes. Funny enough the email address is Bwise. It's initial Bwise. I have a feeling that it's somebody's name, and maybe it's-

Susan: It is somebody's name.

Brian: -Barry Wise or something like that. @nycourts.gov, Bwise, letter Bwise, Bwise@nycourts.gov. Bwise@nycourts.gov. Be wise folks and make your voice heard, if you want to make your voice heard at that email address before the end of the day. We thank Susan Lerner, Executive Director of Common Cause New York for explaining this really hard to explain thing to us this morning. Thanks, Susan.

Susan: Thank you, Brian.

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