Gerrymandering/Redistricting

“I was hoping that I would be proven wrong,” said Susan Lerner, Common Cause’s executive director. “And instead, I was repeatedly proven right. There’s no satisfaction in that. The process was flawed from the start and indeed has played out as we thought it would.”

“It was a hallmark of the Cuomo administration to introduce bold measures to make great headlines that have little to no substance. The redistricting deal is that kind of deal,” said Susan Lerner, executive director of Common Cause New York, which did not support the referendum, declaring it inadequate. “Clearly the desperate desire for a deal overcame good governance.”

"People begging the state to engage in census outreach, nothing happened - 89 people. If there had been state outreach which began even in November or December of 2019, it's easy to see that we would've had hundreds of more people,” said Executive Director Susan Lerner.

The Syracuse Common Council yesterday took historic action toward creating an independent redistricting commission to draw districts for the City of Syracuse. The Common Council voted 7-1 in favor of a charter amendment that will require future redistricting to be done by an independent redistricting commission that includes members of both parties and safeguards against conflicts of interest from the members of the commission.

Responding to a suit brought by a good-government group, a trial judge has ruled the State Board of Elections cannot use the word “independent” in describing a new redistricting commission on the November ballot.

In a victory for the segment of good-government groups opposed to the compromise constitutional amendment on redistricting, state Supreme Court Judge Patrick McGrath has ruled that the redistricting commission that would be created by the proposed change “cannot be described as ‘independent’ when eight out of the ten members are the handpicked appointees of the legislative leaders and the two additional members are essentially political appointees by proxy.”