Vote No on Proposal No. 1: The two basic concepts of republican government are exceptionally simple: the people provide their representatives with power and their representatives remain accountable to the people for how they wield that power. A proposition to be considered by New York voters on the November 4th ballot concerning redistricting challenges both of these tenets. Our state constitution currently empowers the legislature in Albany to redraw congressional and legislative district borders after the completion of the federal census mandated to be conducted every ten years. The premise is that the bicameral legislature, composed of elected officials from every corner of the Empire State, would take into account the differing concerns of citizens across New York when drawing the new boundaries. So why the push for a change in the constitution? In 2012, lawmakers in Albany failed to exercise the redistricting power granted to them. When legislators were unable to gain consensus on a new political map to be drawn following the most recent census, a panel of federal judges were forced to do the job. Imagine you own a business: You hire an employee who promises to fulfill certain obligations. After getting the job, the employee is unable to meet the challenges of the work. Do you fire the employee and hire someone who can do the job adequately? Or would you retain the employee, change the job description and give the work to someone you cant hire or fire? Most rational people would do the former. Proposition 1 is asking the voters to do the latter. Instead of holding legislators accountable, this proposal seeks to absolve them. Each decade beginning in 2020, a 10-member redistricting commission will be established, the ballot initiative states. Eight members will be appointed by the four state legislative leaders and the remaining two members will be appointed by the eight legislatively-appointed members. Few among us can be adequately satisfied with the current partisan way the legislature attempts to divide the state every 10 years. Their interests in redrawing the political map too frequently (and not surprisingly) reveal partisan interests and self-serving intent. At first glance, the proposition appears to be a valid attempt to remedy a problem that everyone recognizes as a serious issue that demands our attention. Something is better than nothing has been a common refrain. The question we need to ask is not whether a remedy is necessary but whether Proposition 1 is the best remedy. Instead of recognizing the failure of our elected officials to gain consensus, supporters of the new proposal would empower a commission, essentially accountable to no one, to do something currently being done by the legislature, theoretically accountable to us. There is nothing in the amendment that requires the commission to act in a bipartisan manner nor is there anything that prohibits this commission from employing the same gerrymandering practices currently dividing the state for the advancement of a purely political agenda. In addition, the constitutional amendment creates a permanence difficult to change if this system proves just as fruitless as the current method. The three-men-in-a-room power structure addressing (or ignoring) most state issues has been a failure in Albany. Reasonable voters have no cause to believe that an amendment extending redistricting power from the current majority in both house of the legislature to a four-men-in-a-room quartet of party leaders would do any better. The trend in using commissions to do the work of the legislature should be alarming. We dont have to go far to see commissioners--like those empaneled by Governor Andrew Cuomo to investigate ethics violations in the state legislature (and ONLY the state legislature)--used as tools to circumvent elected officials that might otherwise be responsible for such activity. The legislature has historically been the place closest to the people at both the state and federal levels of the American political structure. Yet if the commissions can do the work of the legislature, why do we need the legislature? The best remedy, instead ceding our power to party leaders, can be found in the people themselves. The general sense of the people, New Yorker Alexander Hamilton wrote in 1788, will regulate the conduct of their representatives. The founders of our nation--like those of our state--envisioned an electorate informed, engaged and, in some circumstances, angry at those who would fail to adequately perform their duties. Our state is missing all three ingredients. The apathetic citizenry has become the norm and not the exception. Years of cant do anything about it thinking has begun to replaced the can do mentality that once propelled New York to the embodiment of its motto: Excelsior! Some will choose to blame the current state of politics on the system itself; others will lament the ambitions of those with power in Albany. The truth is we have no one to blame but ourselves. Politicians are sinking to as low as we will let them sink. It is us, the public, that seems to have surrendered our ability to get frustrated and use the power of the ballot to hold them accountable. Raising the expectations we have for our state legislators--and rejecting Proposition 1--are the first steps in keeping power with the people. Lets start acting like we deserve it.
Posted on: Tue, 04 Nov 2014 12:00:30 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015