Redistricting should include every county having own member of State Assembly

Editor:

This is an open letter to New York State Legislative members.

Dear NYS Senators and Assembly Members: Re: Assembly Districts

In 1964 the US Supreme Court declared that 49 of the 50 states had to abandon their legislature’s Republican Structure and were now required to reorganize their legislative districts based on population.

Not only does the US Constitution not give the Supreme Court the authority to make such a decree, the United States Supreme Court itself completely ignored Article 4, Section 4 of the US Constitution, which reads:

“The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, … .”

Even before New York became a state it had a Republican form of government. How the Republican Structure was to be maintained was spelled out in the NYS Constitution whereby each county was granted one Representative in the New York State Assembly. (Historically, there was only one exception to this requirement). The more populous counties were granted additional representation in the Assembly when the county’s population was 50% greater (or more) than the average New York State county’s population. New York State maintained its Republican form of government up to 1964.

Despite the New York State’s constitutional requirements, the New York State Legislature complied with the Supreme Court’s decree and proceeded to destroy the Republican Structure of the NYS government.

I ask you to reject any proposal for the redistricting of New York State Assembly Districts that does not restore the Republican Structure to the NYS Assembly and that does not allocate at least one Assembly representative per county.

Vote to return the Republican Structure to the NYS Legislature. Restore the responsibility of the Members of the Assembly to be the representative from, and for, their respective county.

Additionally, consider the fact that the representatives in counties with just one representative are essentially ‘At-Large’ within their county. The Members of the Assembly are all supposed to be representatives of their county. Therefore, all the Assembly districts, regardless of how many representatives each county is allotted, should be designed as the entire county, and all the members should be Representatives At-Large. Please consider making all Assembly Districts county wide and do not allow any Assembly District to be drawn that is just a part of a county, or that includes part of another county.

If you support this proposal, it would completely eliminate gerrymandering of Assembly Districts and would restore the Republican Structure to the New York State Legislature. It would put an end to the “Divide New York” movements, and would restore some county oversight of the New York State Legislature.

I pray that you give consideration to this proposal and help restore the Empire State to its prior greatness.

With goodwill toward all, and proud to be Libertarian.

PS: The following is an example of how simple the redistricting of the Assembly Districts should be to re-establish the Republican structure to the New York State Legislature: The following Assembly seats are allocated to the counties as follows: Kings County 16, Queens County 13, New York 12,  Suffolk 10, Nassau 9, Bronx 8, Erie 6, Westchester 6, Monroe 5, Richmond 3, Onondaga 3, Orange 2, Rockland 2, Albany 2, Dutchess 2, Saratoga 2, Niagara 2,  Oneida 2, Broome 2, and the remaining 43 counties would each be assigned 1 Assembly seat. All of the districts would be county wide and the candidates for the Assembly would be At-Large.

For many reasons, these assignments were made based on the number of registered voters. If you request, I will send the excel table with the calculations.

Mark E. Glogowski, PhD

Hamlin

Former Libertarian Party Chairman in New York