Caucus wants DOJ to challenge Senate lines

Assemblyman Karim Camara, a Brooklyn Democrat who chairs the state’s Black, Puerto Rican, Hispanic and Asian Legislative Caucus is urging the federal Department of Justice to object to the set of new Senate lines adopted last month.

Camara says the Republican-drawn plan disadvantages the electoral representation of racial minorities in violation of the Voting Rights Act, building off his denunciation of the plan when it was due for a vote. (Despite the strong words, many Caucus’ 48 members voted for the lines.)

They’ve been voted into law, but the Department of Justice must now determine whether the redistricting maps comply with the VRA. This set of Senate lines continues several splits of communities of color on Long Island that have existed for decades, and which civil rights advocates have denounced as racial gerrymandering.

So while there’s precedent to back the Republican-drawn plan, there’s a historical twist: this is the first time since the VRA was signed that the Department of Justice is controlled by a Democratic appointee during a time of redistricting. Let alone a black attorney general, Eric Holder, appointed by a black president, Barack Obama.

We’ll see how aggressive the DOJ is here.

This letter mentions those possible problems, and also gripes that districts downstate, where minorities are concentrated, are larger than predominately white Upstate districts. It also questions the Republicans’ decision to place a 63rd Senate seat along the western and southern edges of the Capital Region.

Despite the substantial difference in the population between upstate and downstate New York, the new State Senate seat is located upstate, instead of downstate. The new Senate seat was located downstate rather than upstate, I believe, because the Senate majority wanted to create a new White majority district in the hope of maintaining their majority in the New York State Senate.

Senate Democrats are challenging the lines in court. They contend the decision to upsize the chamber to 63 seats was reached based on an unlawful interpretation of the State Constitution.

Republicans have always contended their redistricting plan complies with the tenets of the Voting Rights Act, as well as the federal and state constitutions.

Here’s the letter:

BPRHA Senate Redistricting Comments

  1. Hope for the Best says:

    Does anyone wonder whether there should be a White Caucus? If equality is the goal, there should be a balance.

  2. Upstate says:

    Count all people living in NY, who are legally in the US. Count all non-white people living in NY, who are legally in US. Divide B by A, round to the nearest integer, and if they have that many districts they have proper representation.

    Whites are represented by non-white legislators, why is it that minorities feel that they cannot have white legislators represent them?

    Otherwise we need white caucuses in legislatures and unions.

  3. Upstate says:

    b / a x 63 rounded to nearest integer.

  4. CUmike says:

    I guess I don’t understand why we have two separate legislatures in NY, with different numbers of members, that have to be divided into equal population; I feel that a similar structure to the federal legislature should happen in NYS. The assembly should be a fluid number of seats with boundaries that correspond to equal representation. The Senate should have 62 seats, with one legislator per county.

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