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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. As New York's redistricting saga continues, as most of you know, every 10 years following the census, states redraw their congressional district lines and other district lines to take account of population shifts. But politics being what it is, those lines are often drawn to benefit the party in charge and usually the current office holders. They also have to try and keep communities together and those lines can be drawn to strengthen or break up potential voting blocs.

The resulting maps are sometimes so crazy they coined a term to describe the odd salamander shaped districts, once upon a time, that term gerrymandering. New York joined a handful of other states to try and take the politics out of the process when voters in 2014 approved a new so-called independent commission to draw the lines, which was tried following the 2020 census. It didn't work out so well. It all ended up in the courts, and this year they tried again.

Yesterday, the democratically controlled state legislature, Democratic Party in control rejected the independent commission's second effort and released their own districts overnight, which they will vote on this week. Now we're still learning how this might affect the June 25th congressional primaries as petitioning starts today, by the way, to get on those ballots. Candidates have to figure out which neighborhoods are in their district and which neighborhoods are not, and it's not really resolved, or even like in 2022, lawsuits will upend things again.

We'll follow the impact of this on the elections, but this morning let's talk about the process with Susan Lerner, executive Director of Common Cause New York, the good government group. She has some thoughts. Hi Susan. Welcome back to WNYC.

Susan Lerner: Thanks for having me, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: First of all, the census is every decade on the zero, right, 2010, 2020. It was 2020 that the census took place. Here it is 2024, and they still are fighting over how the district lines should be drawn on that basis. What a mess.

Susan Lerner: I couldn't agree more, and it does not have to be this way. We need a system that centers voters and residents and not politicians. We can get there. Other states and other jurisdictions do it right, and it's really scandalous that New York is on this redistricting gerrymandering merry go round.

Brian Lehrer: Now, one might think hearing the term independent redistricting commission, that that's the good government way of doing things. It makes it so that the party in control of the legislature can't just dictate the lines to the benefit of that party, but I gather that you are actually not a fan of the independent redistricting commission structure.

Susan Lerner: No, not at all. In fact, we went to court to prevent the commission from being described as independent on the ballot, and we want a court order that said it couldn't be described as independent because it isn't. It's politically controlled. It's an even number of commissioners, and we feared that what would happen is that they would deadlock as we see so often in commissions that are split between the two parties and there are even numbers. Indeed, that's what happened on the first go round.

The first go round, the commission deadlocked, they couldn't agree on a single second map. In fact, at the very end of the process in the first round, they weren't even able to agree to have a meeting. Now we have a situation where they have come together and agreed on a mutual scratching of the back consensus map, which is a mild gerrymander on behalf of both sides, but the commission is far from independent. It's politically controlled and that's not voter controlled.

Brian Lehrer: How can you gerrymander on behalf of both sides?

Susan Lerner: Well, you cut a deal the way the commission clearly did. You have one district that goes slightly more Republican, you have another district that goes slightly more Democratic. In the case of the commission, two districts. Each side says, “Well, we got something out of it so we have a deal,” and it's the voters in the middle who are not well served.

Brian Lehrer: Have you gotten a look at the maps that the state legislature I guess started to vote on last night or started to draw up? I'm still unclear on what happened overnight, and I don't think the candidates even know yet which neighborhoods, which blocks are in their potential districts and out of their potential districts, but where are we as far as you could tell?

Susan Lerner: Well, I have not had a chance to really look at the maps in detail. Last night, what the legislature released was a prose recitation of what the districts would look like. It's really hard to understand. They released the maps themselves, the files for the maps within the last half hour so I haven't had a chance to really dive in and see. From what I have been told, there are some changes, but it's not a complete redraw. Again, what this does is it undercuts confidence. The voters are confused, the candidates are confused, and it's the anti-Democratic agenda which is strengthened by all of this chaos.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, anyone want to weigh in on how New York State handles redistricting? Is that too wonky or do you have an opinion on this or a question? Maybe you attended one of the public hearings throughout the commission's work. Are you in one of the areas that keeps shifting around, someplace on Long Island, someplace in the Hudson Valley? From what I understand, this will even include Co-op City and parts of Wakefield in the Bronx, as well as Huntington Station on Long Island, Cold Spring Harbor, Massapequa, others on the island, parts of Orange Count, north of the city. Would you rather be in a contested district or in a majority or the loyal opposition? Call or text us 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692.

I want to ask you, Susan, about one of the objections that some Democrats might have to your position as the leader of a good government group, try to be nonpartisan and just look for the best process. That the term they'll use is unilateral disarmament, because there are states controlled by Republicans where they just don't have as much compunction about partisan redistricting. Democrats will say, “Look, if there are other states out there controlled by Republican legislatures that are tipping the scales toward Republican congressional districts in their states, then the proper response is that Democrats get to do that in blue states, not that they unilaterally disarm.” What would you say to that?

Susan Lerner: Well I think even small children know the two wrongs don't make a right. In the states that do egregiously gerrymander, we at Common Cause have been involved in litigation attacking those maps. Again, what happens is extended chaos that undercuts the voters' confidence. There are much better models out there that have been adopted, that put voters first, and that's what we need to do. A strong candidate will be able to win if they run a good campaign. Parties should be concentrating on getting the best people to run and running good campaigns and not trying to put their thumbs on the scale, which turns off the voters.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take a phone call. Jim in the South Bronx, you're on WNYC. Hi Jim.

Jim: Hi. Good morning. Thank you for taking my call. Yes, I'd like to respond to your guest criticism of this dual party of Republican-Democratic commission and it's compromising so that both sides get something. I'm not clear as to why that's a bad thing. I always thought of politics as the art of negotiation, compromise between different interests. I didn't get exactly why it is if you have a dual party system on this commission and which each side gets something, why is that bad? We see what happens in the Congress when you have hyper-partisanship. I'm not understanding what's wrong with it.

Susan Lerner: Well when you have hyper-partisanship, as you said, what is lost is the confidence of the voters that their elected representatives are going to put the voters' interest first and not just the political expedience. Right now, we are in a hyper-partisan era where people are being told not to have confidence in our small deed democratic system, that politics is all about the advantage for one political party over the other and not about what's best for the residents of our state. We should not be buying into a system which encourages that cynicism, which turns off a large number of people and makes them feel like it isn't worth voting because the maps are already predetermined.

Brian Lehrer: Jim, you and Susan could get together after the show and debate, which is better for democracy. Heidi in Westbury, you're on WNYC. Hi, Heidi.

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Heidi, listen to your phone, not the radio. All right. We're going to come back to Heidi in a second and go up to Hudson in the Hudson Valley, one of the areas that's been in and out of various districts in recent years. Mary in Hudson, New York, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Mary: Hi, Brian. Yes, I just wanted to ask a question, why we're using the census numbers from the census that was so badly mangled and rolled out. They had questions on there that I think were deemed illegal or didn't really have any purpose except to make racial judgments and things. Also, the new maps for NY19 are not much better than the ones that they rolled out. It makes it a little bit redder. Anyway, our district really needs to be looked at and before this becomes final. Anyway, I'll take my answer off the air. Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Let's see. District 19, I always get confused between--

Mary: We're Molinaro, we were red, then we went blue, then we went back to red. We're connected with Binghamton and now we're connected further south, so anyway.

Brian Lehrer: Right, so that used to be a Democratic district. Delgado had that seat before he became Lieutenant Governor to Hochul, right?

Mary: Yes. Delgado had switched it. Yes, it was blue, red, blue, red.

Brian Lehrer: What about Mary, Susan, and other people in areas like that that keep going back and forth and back and forth every time there's a redistricting?

Susan Lerner: I think this actually goes to my point, which is when the process is totally completely controlled by the political parties for political gain, it undercuts the confidence of the voters that they're going to have a fair chance to choose their representative. Every map is a compromise. There's no such thing as a perfect map. There are a lot of different criteria that go into drawing a map. When the process is politically driven, then people feel that their concerns for fair representation are not being addressed.

We need a process that encourages people to accept the compromises that every single map represents, and know that the maps have been drawn with an eye towards bare representation. You know Brian, Mary raises a point which it confuses many people, which is why are we still using the census figures from 2020 when we're now in 2024? The reason for that is that the US Constitution sets up the census every 10 years, and the census is designed to provide the data that we use in drawing the maps.

Since we're not going to redo the census for another 10 years, constitutionally, we're required to use the 2020 data. It's a snapshot in time. As Mary points out, it's not perfect, no human system is perfect, but it is what we are constitutionally required to use in drawing the district lines.

Brian Lehrer: Let's get back to Heidi in Westbury, which is in the former George Santos, now Tom Suozzi district. Give her another shot. Heidi, you're on WNYC. Hi.

Heidi: Hi. Thanks for taking my call. My question is to your guest's previous point is why have we never considered developing a computer program or some kind of system that takes into account criteria, demographics, and everything else, and takes out the human emotions and politics out of the process?

Susan Lerner: Heidi, thank you for that question because we get that question every single time we talk about redistricting. The truth of the matter is that there is no impartial computer system. Somebody's programming that computer. What we've seen over and over again with algorithms and other computer-driven analyses, that the biases and the prejudices and the assumptions of whomever is programming that machine is built into the program.

The second reason that we don't use a computer in that way is that people don't live, gather, and work in evenly spaced boxes. There are a lot of different factors. There are a lot of compromises and value judgments that have to be made in drawing a map. Therefore, we believe that a group of impartial non-politically driven citizens and residents of an area who get together, and know their own community's concerns, and negotiate a fair compromise is the best way to do this process.

I think that having citizens rather than politicians negotiate out in public so that people can understand the trade-offs, means that people will accept the kind of compromises that every single political map represents much more easily than worrying about, “I'm a Democrat, the Republicans are unfair,” or, “I'm a Republican the Democrats get too much in the state.”

If you've got actual non-politically driven citizens and residents of communities who are looking to create a fair map, I believe, and we've seen in places that have this system like California and Syracuse, that the public is much more content with the final map when they know that it's the result of fair negotiations and not politically driven.

Brian Lehrer: What did California do?

Susan Lerner: California has for two cycles now a commission that's made up of volunteer citizens who volunteer to be on the map drawing commission. They spend an entire year traveling around the state hearing from different communities. They hold over 100 hearings in California. They do all of the negotiations around the map in public, in public meetings. The public can see the basis on which the political district lines are drawn and accept that they are fair and the result of an honest compromise, trying to be sure that different communities are fairly represented and voters have a fair chance to choose their representatives instead of politicians choosing their voters.

Brian Lehrer: Wouldn't those volunteer citizens be politicized volunteer citizens? They might be MAGA, they might be Democratic socialists, they might be Biden Democrat, you know what I mean?

Susan Lerner: Part of the process for vetting them is to be sure that they understand that they have a responsibility to be fair drawers of the map, to be fair representatives of their community. That isn't to say that they don't bring their life experience, but a well-balanced citizen commission balances out the different concerns, doesn't weigh it in one direction or another, and allows there to be a fair compromise that's arrived at in sunlight out in public.

Brian Lehrer: New Yorkers, you have two primaries coming up, one this spring, one technically this summer. April 2nd, the presidential primary, and then back on June 25th, that's the congressional primary, right Susan?

Susan Lerner: Yes.

Brian Lehrer: June 25th.

Susan Lerner: Assuming it isn't changed, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Oh, because that happened the last time around. It was being fought for so long in court that they had to delay some of the primaries to August. Is that right?

Susan Lerner: That's right. That's one of the things we hope we do not see this year because again, we don't think that's good for the voters. First and foremost, we need to be talking and thinking about voters and not politicians.

Brian Lehrer: We don't know yet how this will wind up because these maps drawn by the Legislature yesterday, still coming to light overnight, may yet wind up back in court, but we'll keep following it. Susan Lerner, executive Director of the good government group, Common Cause, New York. Thanks for coming on.

Susan Lerner: Thank you.

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