the albany project - Front Page

Living Liberally, this Thursday. Annual Celebration, party, fundraiser, now with even more awesome.

Michael Bouldin — Tue, 08 May 2012 09:50:28 PDT

Thursday, May 10th. 6:30-9:30pm.

Location: The DCTV Firehouse, 87 Lafayette St

Food provided by Eating Liberally & Jimmy's No. 43

Open bar (beer, wine, liquor).

Beer and specialty drinks provided by by Six Point Craft Ales; Bitters, Old Men; and Bluecoat, American Dry Gin
Meet this year's honorees, enjoy the company of fellow Liberals from across our network, raise a glass to our successes and help support our continued expansion.

----> What else? Go over the fold.
Meet this year's honorees, enjoy the company of fellow Liberals from across our network, raise a glass to our successes and help support our continued expansion.

New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman

A Courageous Champion for Justice and Equality

New Organizing Institute

A Critical Ally in the Progressive Movement

Celebration Co-Hosts:

1199 SEIU

Celebration Sponsors:

AFL-CIO, Advomatic, Daily Kos, Democrats.com, MoveOn.org, Netroots Nation, Berger Hirschberg Strategies, Blue State Digital

Celebration Supporters:

Upworthy, We The People, The Honorable City Council Member Letitia James, The Honorable Marc A. Landis, Blue State Coffee, Helen Rosenthal, The Honorable Debra Cooper, Alliance For Justice, The Honorable City Council Member Brad Lander

List in formation. You can learn more about sponsorship opportunities by contacting justin (at) livingliberally (dot) org

Host Committee:

Katrina Lynne Baker, Josh Bolotsky, Mary Bruch, Lily Fan, Michael Freedman-Schnapp, Stephanie Elaine Hunt, Jen Johnson, Ben Kallos, Mike Klein, Justin Krebs, Elana Levin, Nicole Lindenbaum, Matthew O'Neill, Taylor Pineiro, Gregory Rae, Matt Rosenberg, Peter Rothberg, Brian Sonenstein, Jennifer Suh, Shaunna Thomas, Kerry Trueman, Alex Urevick-Acklesberg, Harry Waisbren, Aaron Welch, Ben Yee

To join the host committee, volunteer or ask any questions, please contact Nicole Lindenbaum: nicolelindenbaum (at) gmail (dot) com

Get Your Tickets Now!

Volvo-Driving Liberal - $250

Sushi-Eating Liberal - $150

Latte-Sipping Liberal - $100

Recession Special:

Community Organizer Rate

(get two tickets for only $150 if you order now)

Chip In What You Can -- if you can't come to the event, consider "Tipping Liberally" to help support our chapters across the country, and show your support for the event.

You can also help out via check and snail mail.

Make checks payable to:

"Living Liberally"

and send to:

Justin Krebs

236 Hoyt St #2

Brooklyn NY 11217

Tickets are also available at the door.

Note: Donations are not tax-deductible.

Learn from Roscoe

simonstl — Mon, 07 May 2012 09:43:58 PDT

No, not the how-to of cheating at cockfighting or fixing elections. Roscoe, William Kennedy's 2002 classic of Albany politics, certainly explores all that, but mostly it's a study of a man deeply embedded in a political machine. Roscoe Conway helped build it, profited by it, and now mostly wants to retire - but can't. The machine needs him, for now, even if its participants don't all realize it.

Roscoe is a scoundrel, and even he seems aware of it, though he continues nonetheless. His journey through post-WWII Albany illustrates how the machine works, how it justifies its work, and how the social ties of political relationships sustain it especially when it's under attack.

Roscoe is always thinking about this, but rarely brings it all to the surface. One paragraph, describing a photo of Jimmy Walker, Roscoe, and his comrade-in-the-machine Patsy, though, gives a taste:

This is a war photo: three warriors marching into combat against what Roscoe calls the Morality Plague...

The Plague comes out of oblivion every seven or so years and, like the locust, builds its white houses in public cemeteries, and propagates, with evil simplicity, "truth" and "honesty" as political virtues. This has the popular appeal of chocolate, the distorting capacity of gin.

But Roscoe wonders: Since when has truth been a political virtue? Can you name one truth that is everywhere welcome? Certainly there are none in play in any quest for, or defense of, political power - Jimmy's for instance - for power is based in the deep comprehension and perverse love of deception, especially self-deception, and any man who seeks power through truth is either a fool or a loser.

Roscoe knows of no candidate's ever making a campaign pledge to reveal all his own self-inflation, all those covetous, envious, lascivious, venal, and violent motives that drive every move he ever makes in politics and will continue making if elected. Roscoe certainly did not invent the perverse forces that drive human beings and he can't explain any of them. He believes they are a mystery of nature.

He concedes that a morally pure society, with candidates unblemished by sin and vice, might possibly exist somewhere, though he has never seen or heard of one, and can't really imagine what one would look like. "But I'll keep looking," he concludes. (page 235, paragraph breaks added)

This is a painfully familiar cynicism, echoed in the hallways of power regularly. "We are flawed," it says, and denies that any improvement on those flaws is possible, unless perhaps an impossible utopia springs up. It questions the right of reformers to ask for more of their elected officials. It assumes that the greater knowledge - indeed the cynicism - of those already in power outweighs any possible claims to political virtue of those outside the machine.

Of course, it stands ready to welcome those willing to play its games, and machine politics have a long history of absorbing reformers, turning the last decades's reforming challengers into next year's old guard. Sometimes it can apply its power to defeating reform challengers, and other times it's had to stand aside and wait for the Morality Plague, as Roscoe puts it, to run its course.

Kennedy's Author's Note at the end reminds us that "This is a novel, not history", but like all of his Albany novels, he does an excellent job of capturing a time and a place and a city in ways that usually elude historians. I didn't read Roscoe expecting biographies of Mayor Corning or Dan O'Connell, and I wonder if they experienced quite as much drama as Kennedy presents here. Perhaps.

Roscoe's lessons aren't limited to Albany the city, either. They still apply today - minus many of the exciting period details - to Albany the state capital. Somehow I wasn't surprised to find Assemblyman Jack McEneny listed in the acknowledgments. After all, beyond his interest in history, a decade after Roscoe was written, he was the Assembly's face on LATFOR, continuing a long tradition of selling out the voters in favor of privileging those already on the inside through creative redistricting.

Roscoe has a lot to teach us reformers. Read it, weep, and know your opponent. It took me years to make myself finally read it. It was worth it.

Justice

Roatti — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 09:22:51 PDT

The corrupt piece of human garbage otherwise known as former State Senator Carl Kruger got his comeuppance today: seven years in the clink:

Mr. Kruger, 62, was the first defendant to be sentenced in a widespread bribery conspiracy case that originally ensnared eight people, and was seen as offering yet more evidence of the apparently unending wave of corruption in Albany.
Prosecutors had asked the judge, Jed S. Rakoff of Federal District Court, to impose a prison sentence of 9 to 11 ¼ years, as recommended under the advisory federal guidelines. The judge issued the lesser sentence to Mr. Kruger, citing his "many good deeds." But he made it clear that such credit was outweighed by the fact that Mr. Kruger had entered into "extensive, long-lasting, substantial bribery schemes that frankly were like daggers in the heart of honest government."

Good riddance. Three amigos down, one to go.

When is reform not reform?

Dan Jacoby — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 10:07:31 PDT

There is a big push on to enact campaign finance reform in New York state. Almost every "good government" group is on board, as is former NYC Mayor Ed Koch and a team of high-money businessfolk led by Barry Diller.

Okay, great. We all know that campaign finance reform is desperately needed. What New York doesn't need, however, is the kind of political hackery masquerading as reform that is being put together.

The bill being crafted is modeled on the NYC system. For almost a quarter of a century, NYC has had a partial public funding system in place. It was implemented, and has been dramatically modified several times, always (one assumes) with the best of intentions. Unfortunately, we know which road is paved with good intentions.

Nobody out there is asking whether that system actually makes a difference in how the government operates. If they honestly asked that question, and honestly strove to find the answer, they would discover that the system has failed completely. With one minor exception (details below), nobody has ever gotten elected because of public funding. And everyone still wins the same way, by raising a boatload of money, principally from large-dollar donors. In 2009, for example, the big losers -- people who finished third or lower -- still raised over 60% of their money via large donations; the winners raised nearly 80% of their money that way. And that's just for City Council; for citywide officeholders the large-dollar donors made up about 95% of money raised!

More after the fold:
To make matters worse, the lone exception, Coincilmember Dan Halloran, only won because he qualified for tens of thousands of dollars in "bonus" funds, a bonus that has since been ruled unconstitutional.

Even worse than that, nobody is asking where the money will go if direct campaign contributions are limited, even though we know that they will go to party committees and SuperPACs. And nobody is doing anything to stop it.

We need a system that:

• Eliminates the need for any large-dollar fundraising;
• Has a constitutional method for encouraging participation (to replace "bonus" funds);
• Strictly limits party committee fundraising and spending;
• Closes loopholes that allow unreported "in-kind" contributions, such as free phonebanking space or use of a clubhouse for GOTV efforts;
• Requires -- and enforces -- strong reporting methods for candidates, party committees, and all "independent" spending; and
• Overturns the infamous "Citizens United" decision.

That last one requires a push at the federal level, but without overturning CU no campaign finance system has a chance of making a difference.

I'll be posting updates. Meanwhile, call your state Senator and urge him or her not to cave in to the mania of the day. It's better that reform -- real reform -- languish for a year or two than that it be stifled for a generation due to political hackery.

NY-Sen: Wingnut Wendy's pathetic attack against Kirsten Gillibrand

devtob — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 07:18:52 PDT

Wingnut Wendy Long has to win a Republican primary in June to become the challenger to Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, but she's acting like the nominee already.

Monday, she ignored her two primary opponents and launched a weak, stupid attack on Gillibrand.

Jimmy Vielkind of the Albany Times Union put the Long press release on the TU's political blog:

Taking the recent Supreme Court arguments over the constitutionality of the 2010 federal health care law as a hook, Republican Senate hopeful Wendy Long is attacking Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand's support for the measure, sometimes called Obamacare, by pointing to its impact on medical device manufacturers.
Long's aides put out an industry-funded report honing in on the law's 2.3 percent tax on medical devices - some of which are produced in Warren and Washington counties. The report estimated a $3 billion hit on the industry, meaning a loss of 39,000 jobs nationwide.

Wingnut Republican attacking a Democratic Senator based on an industry-funded report -- what could go wrong with that?

Just about everything.

Details, below.
First of all, Wingnut Wendy's weak attack is based on a report paid for by AdvaMed, the medical device trade association.

Evidently, Wingnut Wendy argues in her press release that a modest 2.3 percent tax on extravagantly priced medical devices would lead to the loss of 39,000 jobs nationwide in the industry.

That's certainly not true, or even knowable, but even so, that job loss guess (2 percent of national industry employment) in the industry-funded report is not just based on the modest sales tax.

From the report (at the TU link above):

At the request of AdvaMed, Battelle developed an economic scenario to model the impacts of a potential change in the industry stemming from an economic "event" that changes the business environment for the medical technology industry. ...
If this (hypothesized by industry-funded researchers) economic event were to become permanent, the industry baseline economic parameters would be reset by the amount of this one-year impact going forward. These potential revenue changes can come from a number of sources; examples include increasing or decreasing foreign competition, new breakthrough devices or instrumentation, changes in federal and state health care reimbursement policies, or changes in competitive pricing or demand occurring via business climate changes (such as taxes).

Taxes are just one input among many in the industry-bought "event" model that leads to Wingnut Wendy ludicrously claiming that Gillibrand kills jobs.

By supporting health care reform that will ultimately save lives, and money.

The "potential revenue changes" are pretty vague in the industry-funded report -- sounds to me like the normal price pressures that would develop in a competitive, highly profitable industry.

And the 2.3 percent tax, which would be used to partially support expansion of health insurance coverage under the ACA, is surely something manufacturers will be able to absorb and/or pass on with little trouble.

Medical device manufacturers, assuming their devices are effective, will be very profitable businesses in the near future, as baby boomers come to need stents made in Washington County, new knees and hips, pacemakers, etc.

Wingnut Wendy is tooting her tea party horn by lying about health care in this press release, which may well help her get the Paladino vote (34 percent).

But Wingnut Wendy won't get, or deserve, much more than that.

NY-Sen: Wingnut Wendy gets a head start

devtob — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 18:54:29 PDT

New York's Republican and Conservative parties convened over the last few days to pick their challenger to Senator Kirsten Gillibrand this year.

At the GOP convention in Rochester over the weekend, Manhattan attorney Wendy Long was the clear favorite, but will face a primary in June.

Long got 47 percent of the weighted vote, followed by Nassau County Comptroller George Maragos with 27 percent and Rep. Bob Turner, special-election winner in September of NY-9, Anthony Weiner's former district, with 25 percent (just enough to avoid having to petition to get on the primary ballot).

At the Conservative meeting in NYC today, Long was the unanimous choice, because she is clearly more conservative than the others, especially on the social issues that appeal to the GOP base and the old Catholic guys running the Conservative Party, but no one else.

For example, Long believes that Roe v. Wade was "a horrible decision," and that "nobody would even notice" if it were overturned.

But while Long would be a tasty sacrificial lamb in November, she may not get there.

Why, below.
Unlike Long and Maragos, Turner has actually won a federal election. He only got into the race just last week, when it became clear that he would have a difficult time getting back to Congress after redistricting.

Though Long is plenty conservative, Turner will apparently have the support of the state's largest conservative newspaper, the Murdoch money-pit New York Post.

The Post campaigned in its news and editorial pages for Turner in the special, and its state editor Fred Dicker has been extraordinarily dismissive of Long on his WGDJ-AM radio show (podcasts here).

Here's some of what Dicker said about Long last week:

A woman from New Hampshire, Wendy Long, has already wrapped up the Conservative Party's backing, if ever there was a formula for throwing in the towel on taking on Kirsten Gillibrand, that's it.
What's going on here, when the Republicans and the Conservatives could have a terrific, probably their best candidate, to run against Kirsten Gillibrand and the Conservative Party seems to be putting a knife into Bob Turner.
snip
(To his guest, Politico reporter and former Postie Gregg Birnbaum) Had you ever heard of Wendy Long, do you know anything about her?
GB: I have not, Fred.
FD: Neither has anybody else.

And Dicker piled on today:

The Republican Party, such as it is, held a bizarre nominating convention Friday which is all over the map, three people running in a primary, dividing the vote, eating up the money.
And the candidate who right now looks like is certain to be the Conservative Party candidate, Wendy Long who is from New Hampshire, has a presence at that convention that is hard to understand.
snip
(In an interview with veteran NY GOP Brendan Quinn) What do you make of the fact that here you have a guy like Bob Turner, a Congressman, a proven vote-getter in a heavily Democratic district, not even endorsed by the party leader, desperately trying to become the nominee to run against Kirsten Gillibrand, when in fact it looks like a person I had never heard of until a few months ago, Wendy Long who's from New Hampshire, is going to be the nominee?
snip
I haven't heard anything about what Wendy Long has done in New York, she's from New Hampshire, I gather, that would warrant her being taken seriously as a candidate for U.S. Senate.

Ouch!

Dicker is, by far, the most influential conservative journalist in NYS.

And he would prefer someone who's won a highly publicized Congressional special election in the city that the Post invested in to an unknown from New Hampshire.

Maragos, who's been campaigning several times longer than Long and Turner combined, is rightly considered a regional candidate with little appeal/name recognition outside Nassau County.

But Turner is largely unknown outside of southern Brooklyn, where a few anti-marriage equality rabbis got him into Congress in the special, after he had been landslided by Weiner in 2010.

And Long is unknown outside her family and the far-right legal circles she's worked in most of her life.

NY Republicans had their best chance to defeat Gillibrand last year, in her first statewide election. None of the notional A-listers (Giuliani, Pataki, King) were interested, the spring convention put two no-names on the ballot, and another no-name petitioned to get on the primary ballot, and won.

Only to lose by about 2-1 in November, in the tea party wave year.

IMHO, Turner would be the stronger GOP candidate this year, because Long is really Wingnut Wendy, with limited appeal outside the 27 percent.

But Turner on his best day would be lucky to lose by 10 percent to the excellent Kirsten Gillibrand.

The Road we've Traveled

Roatti — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 14:46:21 PDT

The obama campaign released this video yesterday, narrated by Tom Hanks and Directed by Davis Guggenheim. It is true- Obama inherited a disaster and has turned it around. Let's make sure that millions of people see this video before election day.

Cuomo Better Not Cave on Redistricting

Roatti — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 23:33:33 PDT

This is unacceptable:

The adjusted maps, publicly disclosed late Monday, did not significantly depart from earlier versions that Mr. Cuomo said were "unacceptable."
Still, Mr. Cuomo said they showed "progress," and Senate Republicans insisted they were fairer toward Democrats, removing situations where incumbent Democrats would be forced to run against each other.

Cuomo, who is usually so good about realizing when he has a good political hand, would be making an inexcusable mistake in caving on this. Let me say one thing: The status cuo is reform. If a federal court redraws the legislative district lines, that is an impartial, uninterested third party. Victory requires doing nothing except breaking out the veto pen. To do anything to change the trajectory of the status quo would be to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Don't make a foolish mistake, Governor.

Catholic Lobby Day

devtob — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 18:13:22 PDT

Every year, New York's Catholic bishops sponsor a Lobby Day in Albany, usually around St. Patrick's Day.

Given what the national media have been interested about regarding the Catholic hierarchy and public policy, one would assume that the Lobby Day is all about contraception, abortion, and same-sex marriage.

One would be wrong.

More, below.
According to a handout about the Catholics at the Capitol Lobby Day Tuesday, the major issues for NY's Catholic bishops are, in order, education aid, poorest New Yorkers, life issues, and immigration and prison reform.

No mention at all about contraception or marriage equality (last year's big issue, thankfully resolved).

On education aid, the bishops support Gov. Andrew Cuomo's budget proposal to fully fund the costs of parochial schools complying with state mandates.

The bishops also would like tax credits for parents of parochial school students, which they have been lobbying for for decades, without success.

On the poorest New Yorkers, the bishops support more state spending on safe and affordable housing, child care, emergency food programs, transportation and job training programs, and the basic public assistance grant.

Re: the latter, the bishops' spokesman said, "A few dollars for the poor is real money. They can't afford to wait another year."

On abortion, the bishops support more funding for the church-related Maternity and Early Childhood Foundation, which provides pre- and post-natal services to women.

And the bishops oppose the Reproductive Health Act, which they say would force Catholic hospitals to perform abortions.

On immigration and prison reform, the bishops support a path to citizenship and the DREAM Act.

And increased funding for therapeutic, educational and vocational programs in prison, and housing and health care for released prisoners.

NYC Cardinal Timothy Dolan was in town for the Lobby Day, and did Fred Dicker's radio show this morning (podcast available here), chatting about education and other issues.

Dolan presumably mis-spoke here:

Even those who support legalized abortion say we want to keep it safe, legal and rare.
I'm saying well let's do that, we'll at least back you up on that.

I know I'm burying the lede somewhat -- a Cardinal who is the traditional leader of the American Catholic Church supporting safe, legal and rare abortion.

When Dicker asked Dolan if Gov. Andrew Cuomo should be denied Communion because he is pro-choice, Dolan demurred:

Church leaders should always be sources of reconciliation and charity, that we should not come across as punitive and negative and judgmental.
So there almost from a theological, spiritual point of view, I'd be against it.
Secondly, Fred, I think it's counter-productive, I don't think it works.

Cardinal Dolan has his finger to the wind, and realizes that being a wingnut on abortion and contraception will not be good for business.

And that while advocating for the poor may not be politically popular, it is essentially God's work.

Special master's maps

simonstl — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 03:27:36 PST

Sorry for the delay on these. They came out Tuesday (much earlier than expected!) and I've been sick.

At least Upstate, they look more coherent to me than the various proposals from the legislature.

Special Master's Congressional districts map, New York State.

Special Master's Congressional districts map, New York City.

These come from these maps produced in this case. (They're on line 184.)

Comment away!

Excuse me, you seem to be defunding research on a cure for cancer.

Adama D. Brown — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 14:03:36 PST

Now and then, there are things which are just jaw-dropping.

Via Roswell Park Cancer Institute, emphasis mine:

In January, physicians and researchers at Roswell Park Cancer Institute (RPCI) announced a phase I clinical research study of a vaccine designed to both eradicate cancer cells and prevent disease relapse. Developed at Roswell Park, the vaccine will be manufactured in RPCI's new Therapeutic Cell Production Facility using a unique FDA approved process - making RPCI the first research facility in the US to use a custom made, cost efficient machine, and the first in the world to use this system in an approved, government regulated study.
This exciting development and others like it at RPCI may be threatened by the New York State budget. The Governor's 2013 budget would essentially end critical state funding in a mere 2 years. This is disastrous to our community and to the cutting edge clinical care and research conducted at Roswell Park. The state funding to Roswell Park accounts for 14% of the budget which is essential to meeting current state and research operating needs.
Next week, as you begin the budget debate, we need your help to ensure that Roswell can continue its life saving research. Thank you for interest in Roswell Park.

Yes, you read that right: the proposed 2013 New York State budget actually defunds what is currently considered as one of the most promising potential cures for cancer. And yet it still pays for the New York State legislature, which is in itself cancer-ridden.

Fortunately for everyone, there's a quick and easy means you can use to tell the Governor, your state legislators, and the legislature "leadership" to continue funding vital medical research.

Tell Cuomo, Skelos, and Silver to keep funding the fight against cancer

Super Tuesday- Who Ya Got?

Roatti — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 09:35:48 PST

Well, folks, the contest to see who wins the king of the crazy prom is having a big day today, with contests to help decide who gets the ~~Christian Nationalist Party~~ GOP nomination.

My predictions are as follows:

Ohio- Santorum
Tennessee- Santorum
Georgia- Gingrich
Oklahoma- Santorum
Virginia- Romney by default, but Paul becomes the stand-in for the anti-Romney vote and does surprisingly well
North Dakota- Santorum surprises
Alaska- Santorum but Paul does well
Massachusetts- Romney
Vermont- Romney
Idaho- Romney but Paul does well

What are yours?

An attempt at redistricting that makes sense.

Adama D. Brown — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 02:30:26 PST

As you may have heard, the judge in the NYS redistricting case is receiving proposed maps from interested parties. You may not have heard that "interested parties" also includes the public: anyone can submit a map up until the deadline on Friday. Below, you can see photos of the maps that I submitted, along with the text of my cover letter.

To the Honorable Roanne L. Mann,
The notes for submitting a proposed map say that I should include a message that provides any necessary "supporting explanations and legal arguments." I am not a lawyer, and I have no particular legal arguments or precedents in favor of my maps. I have only common sense. Which based on some of the other submissions I've seen is clearly not a requirement for offering input, although perhaps it should be. To that end, I am sending in a map that I've drawn up based on very specific criteria indeed: rationality, compactness, and geography, rather than partisan breakdown, incumbent locations, and party politics.
You will notice that I am only submitting congressional district maps for the ten congressional districts that are slated to sit north of the greater New York City area. Being a resident of upstate, I don't feel qualified to make suggestions for the division of downstate, which poses far more difficult dilemmas in terms of racial, ethnic, and cultural makeup. New York City's residents are capable of offering thoughts on their own borders; we up here can comment on our own. And someone clearly needs to comment, since the proposals so far submitted have been atrocious.
The level of gerrymandering present in the former district lines was quite bad enough, giving rise to the "earmuff" district 28, a district 22 which looks like someone just wasn't even trying to be subtle anymore, and other similarly awkward creations designed to keep certain people in power. And as bad as those are, many of the alternatives now being offered are even worse. Simply put, it would be hard to draw a less coherent set of congressional districts than what have currently been proposed, unless your method relied on a drunken monkey with a dartboard.
Even the map drawn by Common Cause, a reform group, strikes me as lacking basic common sense. Two districts in their upstate map are entirely enclosed by other districts, and one congressional district stretches at least two hundred miles from the edge of Niagara County in the west nearly to Utica. I've gone on road trips shorter than the length of that district.
This, your honor, is the point of my submission: to show that an individual, with no special training or expertise in demographics, can produce in the span of a few hours a map which makes more sense than these so-called legislators could given months of wrangling. It is not that hard--it's just that they aren't trying.
Wherever possible, I have drawn district lines to coincide with county borders. Where this isn't possible, or where a district spans multiple counties, I have grouped together areas with similar interests and spheres of influence. For instance, the Finger Lakes together with the eastern side of Rochester; the western side of Rochester with it's suburbs and areas along the Thruway and I-390 which are within the Rochester "sphere." Areas of the Southern Tier in two districts, one going with Binghamton, the other with Buffalo's southtowns.
The largest cities--Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, and Albany--are each split between two different congressional districts. In this way, each city recieves additional representation in Congress, having two members concerned with its issues instead of one. This also doubles as a means to balance each district; purely urban or purely rural districts would amount to incumbant protection schemes, with Democrats in cities and Republicans in the countryside.
The allowable variance from an even population split in a congressional district is 0.5%, or approximately 3,580. In this map, none of the outlined districts vary from the even split by more than 400 people, or 0.055%.
Each district is compact and self evident in it's layout; nowhere does the partisan breakdown define the shape of the districts, nor do they snake around "undesirable" people or areas. A representative shouldn't need airfare to travel from one end of their district to the other--it not only makes it more difficult for a non-incumbent to get elected, it does a great disservice to the people living on the "far" end from where their representative is, with attention paid to them being rare and thin.
In summation, your honor, it is my attempt to emulate what a set of congressional districts should be; a means to represent the people of a given area in the best way possible, for their own good rather than the good of the party controlling the legislature or the incumbents choosing their voters. I hope my efforts interest you, and I wish you the best of luck in sorting out what is by any measure the tangled morass of New York State politics.
Sincerely,
Adama W. D. Brown

Upstate overview

Western NY

Central NY

Eastern NY

Hudson Valley

Trapped in the sausage-making redistricting machine

simonstl — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 04:41:56 PST

[This is cross-posted from Living in Dryden, and focuses on Upstate and Tompkins County in particular. I fear I lack the strength to even open the Downstate maps after looking through the Upstate maps.]

The Federal Courts have had enough of Albany's delay on Congressional lines, and ordered the legislature to hand over the maps. You can see the docket for the case (missing the Assembly maps?) and a complete set of maps submitted.

The key maps for Upstate and Tompkins County are:

Assembly Democrats map (872KB PDF) - Tompkins + Cayuga + Onondaga + part of Madison

Assembly Democrats' map of Congressional districts

Assembly Republicans map (9.2MB PDF) - Outer Tompkins County towns in huge Southern Tier district to Jamestown, Ithaca/Danby to Binghamton/Utica district

Assembly Republicans' map of Congressional districts

Senate Republicans map (1.4MB PDF) - Tompkins + Cortland + Onondaga + northern Cayuga + Wayne

Senate Republicans' map of Congressional districts

Intervenors (Rose) map (5.3MB PDF) - Tompkins + Seneca + northern Ontario + eastern Monroe

Intervenors' map of Congressional districts

All of these maps are bizarre, to put it mildly. The intervenors map (I don't know who they are, really), seems like a crazy effort to paint diagonal lines across Upstate New York with bonus strange gerrymandering in Broome County. The Assembly Democratic map creates a district that lurches from Binghamton and Cortland to Lake Champlain. The Senate Republicans map is at least mostly more compact, except for our district and the odd way they split up the Hudson Valley. The Assembly Republicans worst moment is here - they make sure that Tompkins stays weirdly divided.

(Senate Democrats didn't submit a map. At first I thought that was gutless of them, but as it turns out the contrast makes them look good.)

A special low point for me is the Senate Republican memo outlining "why incumbency protection is an appropriate factor for the Court to consider in drawing redistricting maps.".

So far, the only map I've seen that resembles sane is the Common Cause Reform Plan (8.3MB PDF), which actually creates compact districts of places that have something to do with each other beyond packing and cracking by partisan results...

Common Cause map of Congressional districts

Common Cause has a larger explanation of what they're up to.

The Wrong Solutions

Roatti — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 19:10:41 PST

This week, there were 2 major education-related stories in the news. First, the State and the Teachers' Union reached an agreement on teacher evaluations. And second, acting under a court order, the City Department of Education publicly released test-result-based evaluations of 18,000 teachers. Sadly, both of these events will not help improve education in the state.

The evaluation system is essentially this:

The agreement, announced at a news conference in Albany, allows school districts to base up to 40 percent of a teacher's annual review on student performance on state standardized tests...
The remaining 60 percent of a teacher's rating is to come from subjective measurements, primarily classroom observations by principals.

This is a huge missed opportunity for the state. First, there is a large portion of individual teachers' evaluations based on test scores. This is a bad idea because it wastes classroom time teaching to the test. And the remaining 60% is based mostly on principal evaluations, which can be highly subjective. It would be better to have an evaluation system where parents and students can have a say in teacher ratings, in addition to principals. Furthermore, test-score based evaluations often lead school districts to bend ethical standards. It's better to base evaluations on data that matters, like grading schools on their graduation rate, college attainment, incarceration rates, and employment of its students when they are adults. And finally, these evaluations have no teeth. Even if they were good measures of teacher achievement, there is no downside for tenured teachers who end up being evaluated poorly.

The publication of teacher's evaluation scores by the City is also the wrong solution. All it will achieve is publicly humiliating the bottom 50% of teachers, and will leave the bottom 5% still teaching in our schools. A better solution would be to not hurt teacher morale and make teaching a less attractive career choice for our best and brightest. Let the worst 5% get fired, and constantly work to make the remaining 95% feel appreciated and empowered and pay them more and treat them like the professionals they are. But that is not currently on the agenda in New York.