Cross your fingers and say a prayer to your deity / higher power of choice. With any luck, this will be last time I write about redistricting in this decade!
After nearly two years of partisan debate and lawsuits, Democrats in New York hope they have settled redistricting until the 2030s. As I wrote in The Wall Street Journal last Wednesday, state lawmakers in both parties approved a new set of districts for the U.S. House of Representatives that observers said will give Democrats a slight boost.
The new map hews to the court-drawn map that was in place for the 2022 elections, in which 11 Republicans and 15 Democrats won seats in New York—a net gain for the GOP that helped them secure the House majority. Democrats successfully sued last year for a second chance at drawing the lines. They unveiled their latest map last week after rejecting the work of an independent panel, and approved it less 48 hours later.
So what does it do? Not too much. The new lines add slightly more Democratic voters to competitive seats in central New York and the Hudson Valley. On Long Island, Republican Rep. Nick LaLota’s district got slightly redder and a district just won by Tom Suozzi, a Democrat, got slightly bluer, according to data aggregated by the City University of New York.
Dave Wasserman of the Cook Political Report called it a “mild/moderate gerrymander.” Nick Fandos at the New York Times spoke to some other analysts:
Nicholas Stephanopoulos, a Harvard law professor who studies the issue, called it “pretty much a model of neutrality.” Samuel Wang, the director of the Princeton Gerrymandering Project, said that the map seemed fair and that his group would likely grade it an “A” or “B.”
The new map satisfied two people who have been combatants on this issue: House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, a Brooklyn Democrat; and ex-Rep. John Faso, a Republican who advised the legal effort that led to the court-drawn we used in 2022.
With the table fully set for 2024, we can focus on the candidates and issues going forward. I know there will be more reports about that in this space.
LA GUARDIA (NOT THE AIRPORT): My good friend (and former editor) Terry Golway has published another political book about Fiorello La Guardia, the “lower-case Franklin Roosevelt” who captivated Depression-era New York and left an enduring legacy.
“I Never Did Like Politics: How Fiorello La Guardia Became America’s Mayor, and Why He Still Matters,” is out now. I haven’t read it yet but thoroughly enjoyed some of Terry’s other recent books. In “Frank and Al,” he plumbed the relationship between FDR and New York Gov. Al Smith. In “Machine Made,” he explored the roots and tactics and history of the Tammany Hall Machine.
The La Guardia book got a great review in the WSJ. You can also listen to Terry talk about it on this podcastwith some other history nerds. And if you’re in Albany, you can hear Terry talk about the book during a March 18 event sponsored by the New York State Writers Institute.
THE QUESTION: What did La Guardia say upon entering City Hall for the first time as mayor?
Know the answer? Drop me a line at jimmy.vielkind@gmail.com. Or just write with thoughts, feedback or to say hi.
THE LAST ANSWER:A Coney in Michigan is a hot dog with minced raw onion, yellow mustard and meat sauce. Here in upstate New York, we call them Michigans. (Go figure.) One of my greatest stories of all time wasthis tomeexploring all the relevant regional cuisines of Upstate America