Senate Candidate Criticized For Redistricting E-Mail
Republicans are criticizing Democratic Senate candidate Did Barrett’s campaign for sending out an e-mail that pledges to redraw congressional districts along “blue lines.”
The e-mail can be viewed here.
The issue arises as former Mayor Ed Koch’s New York Uprising platform includes a plan to have a non-partisan commission redraw the lines. Currently, the state Senate is charged with drawing the lines with a commission acting as in an advisory role. With lawmakers in charge, the theory goes, the party in power would be able to draw district lines that are friendly to them.
Barrett is facing Sen. Stephen Saland, R-Poughkeepsie. Both Barrett and Saland signed the pledged.
The e-mail, sent to supporters on Oct. 12, reminds voters that districts will be redraw in 2011 based on U.S. Census data: ”Due to the 2010 Census, New York is expected to lose two seats in Congress. Those two seats will be eliminated in the next round of redistricting in Albany. Who do you want in Albany when that happens? Senator Saland or Didi Barrett?”
Scott Reif, a spokesman for the Senate Republican Campaign Committee, said, “Not only is Didi Barrett running to become a member of the New York City Democrrat conference that enacted the MTA payroll tax, eliminated the STAR rebate checks and ignored the Hudson Valley, we now know she wasn’t serious about reform. How else do you explain her coming out in support of partisan redistricting and blatantly violating the New York Uprising pledge she just signed? After this episode, Didi Barrett deserves to be labeled as an “enemy of reform.”
Barrett’s campaign manager Aaron Dickerson defended the e-mail, saying Barrett supports non-partisan redistricting and that it was simply a motivational tool to get Democrats out to the voting booths.
“At the end of the day, Didi remains completely committed to it,” Dickerson said. “There’s no structure in place for independent redistricting and Republicans have abused the process again and again. I just think it’s crazy that they’re bringing this up.”
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Get her outa there!
Here’s the part of Aaron Dickerson’s response they chose not to print:
“Currently, there is no structure in place for independent redistricting, and the incumbent, Sen. Saland, voted against SB 1588 in 2006, which would have created an independent redistricting committee. A senator who has voted with his party 98 percent of the time – as Sen. Saland has done during his 20 years in office – cannot be counted on to approach redistricting in a non-partisan manner. Sen. Saland has repeatedly voted against any type of meaningful ethics reform.”
“Democrats have nothing to fear from redistricting. Republicans have a history of ‘tortured gerrymandering’ and many of the Republican incumbents, including Sen. Saland, signed on to the Uprising Pledges at the last moment when they realized it was politically expedient.”
Taitia Shelow
Communications Coordinator, Didi for Senate
This not a big deal. Why are people outraged? Democrats and Republicans are both using this strategy to help mobilize their base.
Democrats need to be aware that a failure to keep majorities in Albany, will lead to a failure to keep majorities in Washington. The un-motivated democratic base needs to wake up and see what will happen if they do not support their candidates!
Re-districting should never have been, nor should not be, at the whim of the politicians themselves. Better that boundaries are pulled from a hat.
Republican criticism of Democratic control of redistricting just lays another pound of hypocrisy to the gross tonnage of half-truths, untruths and deception they have practiced over the years. New York’s State Senate Districts are among the most contorted in the country, the result of desperate attempts to keep a Republican majority in a state where Democratic voters overwhelmingly outnumber Republicans. Take SD 49 in Central New York, which bears a closer resemblance to a salamander than the original Massachusetts district from which Gerrymandering takes its name. That district was drawn to keep Nancy Larraine Hoffmann, a Democrat-turned-Republican in office. She lost in 2004. Or look at SD 11 in the City, which has carved out neighborhoods in the shape of a stylized backwards “E” to protect Frank Padavan. And don’t forget that the reason a tie can happen in the Senate is the extra district the Republicans created in 2002 to maintain their power – before then, there were 61 districts, making a tie and total gridlock all but impossible.
Fact is, it’s getting more and more difficult to draw districts that protect any kind of Republican majority – it’s a function of demographics, not politics. Think a Republican victory would somehow miraculously result in undoing all that has been done when they have controlled the process for 70 years? Think again what the districts would have to look like.
Senate Republicans are on record rejecting a Democratic proposal for an independent commission. They would like to run from that fact, calling attempts by the old Democratic Minority to get a hearing on their bills under the opressive old Republican majority “procedural,” rather than a vote on the actual bill. Senator Schneiderman’s S.1588 was subject to a motion on the floor of the Senate in 2006 to get it out of committee. Republicans rejected that motion, and therefore rejected the bill. Reisman’s posting chose to ignore that fact, even when it was specifically pointed out to him.
The Senate Democratic Majority have implemented a formal procedure to actually allow bills to be discharged from committee against Majority wishes. It’s another reform that they get little credit for, by Republicans and by the press. There’s a lot of things that Democrats have done to democratize what was once a purely autocratic chamber operating under the deceptive guise of democracy. That’s one of the reasons the chamber has been in such turmoil – true democracy is, at times, a very unpretty thing.
Republicans have only called for reforming the system – whether it be redistricting procedures or institutional mechanics – once it failed to work for them. They are only embracing reapportionment reform because they don’t want Democrats to wield the same tools against them that they used for years to keep their oppressive majority in the Senate. Equitable reform, which Didi Barrett embraces, won’t help them much, but for Republicans who could dish it out for decades and are now terrified of payback, it’s better than the alternative.
Don’t think for a minute that big “R” Senate Republicans have somehow seen the light and embraced small “d” democracy. They’re only practicing big “H” Hypocrisy and big “O” Opportunism. HO HO HO.
Ms. Shelow – It is called a “lie.” Don’t spin, just admit. Your candidate lied. Whether or not there is or was a means to have the independent redistricting is not the issue. The issue is (1) did Ms. Barrett sign the New York Uprising pledge for independent redistricting and (2)if so, did she campaign to fellow democrats that she would not follow her pledge? The answer is clear and in the affirmative. You look silly spinning this and lack credibility. BTW – I am a registered democrat. This, coupled with the Poughkeepsie Journal editorial on Saland has sealed the deal. We don’t need a Suzi Oppenheimer in Dutchess to throw us under the New York City bus.
Hypocrite. She cares more about her NYC friends, WFP and public unions. Can you see her standing up to the Teacher’s Unions and fighting to decrease costs, pensions, etc.? No way! Didi, aka “DD” = Disaster for her District.
I don’t care what the issues are, I want a State Senator that I know with much more assurance then a Senators say so that he or she doesn’t have a conflict of interest and will represent NYS to the best to their abilities and not the best interests of their Law Firm, clients or fellow NYS Bar members.
It amazes me that Saland and others aren’t forced to discontinue their law practices after their elections and these “Sponsored” attorneys are practicing law while serving in the NYS Senate and Assembly and I for one will never again vote for an attorney that isn’t willing to discontinue the practice of NYS Law while they serve in office.
These attorneys are little more than lobbyists and it is you and I that are paying their $80,000 salaries.