Gianaris: Pairing lines with amendment is ‘surrender’

Capital Confidential wrote an editorial about a potential deal by Senate Republicans that would delay redistricting reform until the next census in 2022 in exchange for allowing the Republicans to carry out their current redistricting proposal and help them gain an extra state Senate seat. Senator Gianaris criticizes the deal for not providing a solution to the current redistricting problems.

In something of a preemptive strike, Sen. Mike Gianaris blasted the idea of redistricting reform based mostly on a constitutional amendment that, while improving on the set of draft maps released last week, would leave redistricting in the hands of legislators until 2022.

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“This talk of a constitutional amendment being a final solution is a sham,” he said. “The idea that we would accept a bad plan this year — even a slightly modified plan off the horrific plan we saw last week — for future consideration, 10 years down the road, is not real reform. Mayor Koch has made that clear. A lot of the good-government community has made that clear. And let’s remember: you’re asking the gang that couldn’t be expected to keep their promise from one day to the next on independent redistricting for this year to be trusted to make a promise for something that’s going to take effect 10 years down the road. It’s nothing but the old Albany, dysfunctional, cynical game of let’s postpone the problem so we don’t have to deal with it, and we’ll live to fight another day, but people are insisting on reform now. Thank God Governor Cuomo is insisting on reform now, and we’re going to stand with him.”

Read the full article here.