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The Times Union editorial discusses the partisan nature of the redistricting process and how the Senate Republicans have manipulated the new district lines to gain unfair political advantages. According to Senator Gianaris, the Senate Republicans' proposal clearly demonstrates why redistricting needs reform.

"You can't put a good face on this," said Douglas Muzzio, a professor at the School of Public Affairs at Baruch College and an expert in New York politics. "It gives real empirical weight to the argument that there is total partisanship in redistricting."

The appointees to the Legislative Task Force on Redistricting and Reapportionment, or LATFOR, pay close attention to results in past races. To get an idea of what the political map looked like from the point of view of state Republicans, who controlled redistricting in the Senate, and the Democrats who oversaw Assembly redistricting, The New York World — a government accountability initiative at Columbia Journalism School — and the nonpartisan Center for Urban Research remapped the results of the 2010 state legislative elections onto the new lines proposed by LATFOR.

What emerges is a picture of partisan gains on both sides.

Read the full article here.