Koch: It’s ‘retribution day’ for pledge-jumpers

Capitol Confidential blogged about Ed Koch's robocalls to constituents of legislators who have reneged on their pledge for redistricting reform.

NYUprising’s Ed Koch said “retribution day” had arrived for the 42 lawmakers who signed a pledge to support independent redistricting but have subsequently backed off on that promise.

Out of the 138 elected officials or candidates now in office who signed NYUprising’s pledge before the fall elections, 31 senators and 11 Assembly members have changed their mind — “all are Republicans, save for one Democratic Assembly member,” said Koch, himself a Democrat.

The calls will go out to 100,000 households in the districts of “the individual members who has dishonored himself or herself” — 3,000 per senator, 1,000 per Assembly member — over the next week. The message ends with a younger voice saying the recipient of the call will be forwarded to their lawmaker’s office to file a comment by hitting “0″ on the keypad.

Koch wants the public to push for the “miscreants” to change their minds (“If you want to come back into the fold, we accept you — we’re not going to deny you the opportunity to redeem yourself”) or, if they still refuse, to make sure voters remember to throw them out in 2012.

Read the full post here.