Drawing the Line in New York State: In Search of Equitable Redistricting Prepared by Uniondale High School and The Wheatley School students, Doyin Akintobi, Jesse Manor, Kharolann Pierre, Candice Sejour, Daniel Wicks (Teachers: Dr. John Staudt and Ms. Adeola Tella) This Issue-in-Brief is part of 2010 Renew New York, sponsored jointly by Hofstra University, Newsday, and Cablevision. See Renew New What is Redistricting? York website at http://renew-newyork.com. Students from 10 high schools used the model of the National Issues Forums in preparing briefs and forums. Hofstra coordinators: Michael D’Innocenzo, Andrea S. Libresco and Bernard Stein (in association with the Hofstra University Center for Civic Engagement, interns: Kayla Rivara and Samantha Rashid).
Introduction As defined by the New York State Legislative Task Force on demographic research and reapportionment, the United States constitution requires that congressional and state legislative district boundaries be redrawn every ten years, reflecting population shifts detected by the federal census. This process, referred to as “redistricting,” is undertaken by the state legislature.
The ultimate objective of redistricting is quite similar to that of the census. It is the legislature’s responsibility to zone and rezone areas based upon population in order to insure representation based on equitable population distribution. According to Henry J. Stern, former New York City Parks Commissioner and currently chairperson of “NY Civic” (a group working with former Mayor, Ed Koch’s “New York Uprising” to seek reforms in state government), the problem with redistricting is that it is being used by many representatives to help themselves, to destroy
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