Don't expect big shifts Nov. 2, despite reform talk
By JOEL STASHENKO
Associated Press Writer
October 20, 2004, 1:09 PM EDT
ALBANY, N.Y. -- As optimistic as Albany critics are that Election Day results will infuse the state Legislature with new faces and a reform mind-set, remember that New Yorkers will be playing by the Legislature's rules on Nov. 2.
The districts they will vote in were drawn by the establishment _ meaning the majority Democrats in the Assembly and Republicans in the Senate. The district lines were so configured to maximize the advantages the ruling blocs feel is their due because they have managed to solidify their majorities securely in each chamber over the past few decades.
In other words, there are only a relative handful of districts in the 212-seat Legislature in which incumbents' return to Albany could be imperiled, despite the now-common rhetoric about reform and a need for new blood in the Assembly and Senate.
The League of Women Voters' Barbara Bartoletti talks about the "perfect storm" she sees converging this Election Day that will jolt incumbents.
But her ally in the reform wars, Blair Horner of the New York Public Interest Research Group, is thinking more in terms of a tremor, perhaps a minor one. He noted that in the last two decades, in more than 2,000 legislative seats up in general elections, a mere 30 incumbents have been beaten on Election Day by an opponent from the other major party.
On Election Day '04, anything more than five seats changing hands would be the "equivalent of a political earthquake" by Albany's standards, Horner said.
Not only do incumbents almost always prevail in New York, they are rarely even threatened. In 2002, when candidates ran for the first time on the current district lines, the average margin of victory for a state senator was 63 percentage points. That means senators typically captured more than 80 percent of the votes cast in their districts. Assembly members won by an average margin of 56 percentage points.
In only 11 races in the Legislature as a whole was the victory margin 10 percentage points or less.
NYPIRG and other government reform groups say that out of 212 state legislative districts a mere 25 have enrollment differences between Republican and Democratic voters that make them at risk of going to one party or the other every two years.
Eleven of these districts, all with enrollment differences of less than 13,000 between the major parties, are in the state Assembly. Fourteen districts, all with enrollment differences of less than 5,000 between the major parties, are in the Senate.
Even before a single vote is cast on Nov. 2, 74 legislators (24 senators, 50 Assembly members) are assured of re-election because they face no opposition on the ballot from a candidate of the other major party.
Reformers generally favor the establishment of an independent redistricting commission that would draw lines more fairly, equalizing enrollment ratios and eliminating the often tortured districts that are configured to maintain representatives of one party or the other.
Republicans control the state Senate by a 37-24 margin with one vacancy. Democrats dominate in the Assembly, 102-47, where there is also one vacancy.
New York is one of eleven states with split Democrat-Republican majorities in their legislative chambers, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. But while the NCSL said there are 25 legislative chambers across the country where a shift of three seats or less on Nov. 2 would change the majority-party holder, the margins are not nearly that close in New York state. No one is predicting anything like a changeover in power in Albany.
It is axiomatic that while New Yorkers routinely say in polls that they don't like the Legislature, most voters say they do like the people they send there.
In August, a Quinnipiac University poll of New York voters indicated that 57 percent disapproved of the way the Legislature is handling its job and only 26 percent approved. Yet, when asked about how they felt about their own representatives, a half or more _ depending on if they were evaluating their Assembly or Senate members _ had a favorable opinion.
Onondaga County turkey farmer Mark Bitz, a vocal critic of what he thinks is an increasingly out-of-touch state Legislature, said he is worried that sitting lawmakers will convince enough voters they are committed to making improvements that it will be the typical by-the-numbers voting this November at the polls. That will mean business as usual in Albany in January, Bitz said.
"I am a little bit afraid that we're going to get half-baked reform," he said. "We're going to do a few things ... and say they did reform, but I don't think it's going to be meaningful. ... We clearly need to end the ridiculous gerrymandering of districts which gives each house a lock on power for years to come."
The next time the Legislature is bound by law to redraw its own lines is not until 2011 or 2012, based on population shifts reflected by the 2010 U.S. Census.
Joel Stashenko is Capitol Editor for The Associated Press in Albany. He can be reached at jstashenko@ap.org.
Copyright © 2004, The Associated Press
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