BATH, N.Y. (CN) — The rural county judge tasked with overseeing New York's messy electoral redistricting held a public hearing on Friday where voters lobbied him to make sure that the final maps keep minority enclaves whole.
Just last week, New York’s highest court voided the effort put forward by the state Legislature, which would have given Democrats a clear edge in 22 of the state’s 26 congressional districts. The decision triggered a two-month delay of a pair of primary elections New York was set to hold. Now, voters go the polls June 28 for statewide primary races like governor, lieutenant governor and seats in the state Assembly, then again on Aug. 23 for state Senate and Congress primaries.
Judge Patrick McAllister from upstate Steuben County will draw the new map with input from Jonathan Cervas, a postdoctoral fellow at Carnegie Mellon University’s Institute for Politics and Strategy. They met with voters in person Friday at the Steuben County Courthouse, in a town called Bath, roughly 60 miles south of Rochester. There, representatives for a coalition of civil rights legal groups — among them, the Asian American Legal Defense Fund, the Center for Law and Social Justice, and Latino Justice — touted the inclusiveness of their “Unity Map,” which they say was designed with the historic disenfranchisement of communities of color in mind.
Several advocates for the Asian and Pacific Islander communities in New York noted at Friday’s hearing that the 2020 census tracked tremendous growth of those populations in the past decade: Brooklyn experienced 43% increase in growth in the past 10 years, and there was a 29% increase in Queens.
Liz OuYang, a coordinator for the group APA Voice, short for Asian Pacific Americans Voting and Organizing to Increase Civic Engagement, said the Unity Map is “the most equitable plan for Africans, Latinos and Asian-American communities to meaningfully participate in redistricting.”
OuYang also derided the Legislature’s lack of transparency on the redistricting process and urged the court to conduct additional public hearings in New York City to allow more minority communities to contribute to the conversation.
“We are composed of 21 member organizations, but because of the six-hour distance from New York City to Bath by car, only five of these organizations could be here today to voice the concerns of thousands who could not access this hearing,” she said. “We will never know the impact that a sea of concerned API voices in this courtroom would have had in redrawing the state Senate and congressional lines that would caption the reality of more than 1.5 million APAs in New York.”
At Friday’s hearing, Mimi Pierre Johnson, president of The Elmont Cultural Center, urged Cervas to keep the adjoining communities of Elmont and Valley Stream together in the same congressional district.
Located at the border of Queens and Long Island’s Nassau County, Johnson said the two neighborhoods share a common Haitian and Caribbean immigrant community and should belong together in Congressional District 4, encompassing central and southern Nassau County.
“Fair districts are the foundations of fair representation,” she said. “We cannot accept of the outcome of using Elmont and Valley Stream as political pawns. We are two towns but one community that shares so much. Elmont and Valley Stream must stay together on all levels to ensure that our district, religious communities, our walkable shops, businesses and organizations remain together.”
Jaclyn Reyes, a representative from Little Manila Queens Bayanihan Arts group, wrote in absentia to the court about an enclave of Filipino immigrants in and around Woodside, Queens. The Little Manila community “has been divided between at least three state assembly districts," and that three-way apportionment around Woodside has sharply diluted the Filipino community's voice in state politics, Reyes said in a statement read aloud on Friday by Western Queens advocate Victoria Leahy.
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