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Hate Hyper-Partisanship? Support Redistricting Reform Now


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Gov. Cuomo is among those who have expressed support for Prop 1 (photo: @NYGovCuomo)


This column originally appeared at The Daily Beast

With the congressional reelection rate at 95 percent, it's no wonder many voters won't bother to show up Tuesday. But New Yorkers have an important chance to reform their rigged system.

After some $4 billion spent on the 2014 midterms, voter turnout is expected to be down again this Election Day. It's no wonder. The past few years of ugly gridlocked bloodsport politics have driven many Americans out of the arena in disgust.

But there's a stark disconnect between anti-incumbent anger at the least popular, most polarized, and least productive Congress in U.S. history and the 95 percent reelection rate most of the gutless wonders on Capitol Hill have come to expect.

Indeed, 77 members of Congress are facing no opposition at all this fall, depriving voters in their districts of any choice on Election Day. Of course turnout is down: For many voters, there's no reason to show up.

This sick status quo is a result of the rigged system of redistricting. Every 10 years, after the Census, legislators get together and draw district lines in collusion. Politicians pick their people rather than people picking their politicians.

After winning the 2010 elections, Republicans drew enough safe seats to give them something close to a lock on the House of Representatives for the next decade. Two years later, Democrats won half a million more votes for Congress than Republicans did, but the GOP was able to keep control of the House easily. This corrupt bargain results in a decade-long stasis, with far-reaching implications.

In the South, for example, white congressional Democrats have been essentially redistricted out of existence, with Republican-controlled legislatures clustering oddly shaped minority districts in urban areas while leaving lily-white rural and suburban majorities for themselves.

Outcomes are similarly lopsided in swing states like Pennsylvania, where Democrats won 83,000 more votes statewide in the 2012 congressional elections and won five House seats, while Republicans won 13.

Usually, voters have to wait 10 years to have a chance to reform the rigged system of redistricting, and even then the party in power tends to live by the maxim "to the victor go the spoils."

Don't be fooled by high minded-sounding excuses for inaction. This is the best shot we've got for holding professional partisans accountable to the people.

But this year, New Yorkers have a shot at making real changes through a ballot initiative sonorously known as Prop 1. It represents perhaps the last, best chance to reform the incumbent protection racket in the Empire State, taking the power from politicos and lobbyists with more independence and transparency than ever before.

First, consider the septic depth of the problem. New York has a 97 percent reelection rate for state lawmakers, although 28 elected officials have been forced from office on corruption charges over the past decade. You're more likely to leave office in New York state in handcuffs than to lose a general election. No wonder the state ranks toward the bottom in voter turnout.

Every 10 years, the parties collude on district lines drafted by the Assembly speaker and Senate majority leader aided by lobbyists, doling out favors and punishing those rare independent-minded officials who break with the party line. The result is safe seats that lead to apathy and voter impotence, leading logically to ever-declining voter turnout. Overall, 46 percent of legislative incumbents, almost half, were uncontested in their reelection efforts. In central New York this year, there is no option other than the six incumbents on the ballot for state Senate.

But Prop 1 could be the turning point. Legislators and lobbyists would be kicked out of the process and replaced with an independent commission that ensures bipartisan and third-party representation, and a super-majority for passage. New rules would specifically forbid partisan gerrymandering, barring the favoring of incumbents while preserving common-sense communities of interest and protecting minority representation. No more cynically cutting opposition candidates out of a district for petty political purposes. More public input and transparency than ever before.

Not surprisingly, professional partisans hate Prop 1. What's more surprising is how divided so-called good government groups in New York are over this plan to reform redistricting. (Full disclosure: I'm on the board of one of the groups supporting the effort, Citizens Union, but I've been writing in favor of redistricting reform for over a decade.)

So let's take on the twin reasons for opposing Prop 1. The first comes fashionably cloaked in idealism, from self-styled political reformers who say this reform doesn't go far enough. Reality check: Perfect is never on the menu, especially in Albany. Prop 1 is largely modeled on the exhaustively lauded reform in Iowa. In addition, New York's reform would create an enforceable ban on partisan gerrymandering that would allow citizens to hold the legislature accountable by taking legislators to court if necessary. And unlike in California, which has frequent ballot propositions that amount to direct democracy—and which led to a successful redistricting reform earlier this decade—New York requires two consecutive votes of the state legislature on anything that could be considered a constitutional amendment. That happened under massive public pressure, led by the late New York City mayor Ed Koch, in the run-up to 2012. It won't happen again anytime soon because it's simply not in legislators' general interest to give up power. So opposition to Prop 1 on allegedly idealistic grounds is essentially an endorsement of the status quo. Delay is denial.

The second reason is rarely heard in polite company but it's the more honest and realistic reason: Liberal Democrats see their chance to run the table after 2020. Because the national GOP has moved so far right, New York is trending toward becoming a one-party state, and some of the deepest policy debates come from two competing wings of the Democratic Party. Redistricting reform could end up ensuring that Republicans and a handful of third parties keep a degree of influence via inclusion when it comes time to draw up the lines, rather than allowing Democrats to dominate all decisions.

But don't take my word for it. Now indicted Democrat state Sen. Malcolm Smith explicitly said the same thing in 2010: "With the Democrats in control of the state Senate, we are going to draw the lines so that Republicans will be in oblivion in the state of New York for the next 20 years."

Ballot propositions often seem like afterthoughts in elections, and the phrase "redistricting reform" can make even civically engaged eyes glaze over. But if you're one of the millions of Americans sickened by the extreme polarization, hyper-partisanship, and gridlock that's making a laughingstock of our democracy, you should care about the real-time fight for this fundamental election reform.

Don't be fooled by high minded-sounding excuses for inaction. This is the best shot we've got for holding professional partisans accountable to the people. If we fail, the ugly, cynical situation is guaranteed to get worse for decades to come. If we succeed, the result will be more competitive general elections and increased voter turnout. For New Yorkers, the choice is yours and the time is now.

This column originally appeared at The Daily Beast

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John Avlon is the editor-in-chief of The Daily Beast

Note: Gotham Gazette is an independent publication of Citizens Union Foundation, sister organization of Citizens Union

Why I'm Voting 'Yes' on the Smart Schools Bond Act, Proposition 3


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Gov. Cuomo at an event in Buffalo (photo: Governor's Office via flickr)


There has been much controversy and confusion over the Smart Schools Bond Act, which voters will approve or deny by voting on Tuesday, Election Day. Proposition 3 on the back of ballots, the Smart Schools Bond Act would authorize the sale of bonds to generate $2 billion statewide for capital funding. Each school district can use the revenue in the following ways:

· Purchasing educational technology equipment and facilities, such as interactive whiteboards, computer servers, desktop and laptop computers, tablets and high-speed broadband or wireless internet.
· Constructing and modernizing facilities to accommodate pre-kindergarten programs and replacing classroom trailers with permanent instructional space.
· Installing high-tech security features in school buildings.

While I and many other education advocates including Diane Ravitch are fervently opposed to using any bond revenue for the purchase of devices like laptops or tablets that have a useful lifetime of only a few years, as the interest on the bond act is repaid over twenty or thirty years, it is clear that districts will have the choice of how to use these funds and have a broad array of options.

New York City is due to receive about $780 million if Proposition 3 is approved. The Department of Education's five year capital plan makes it clear that if the bond act passes, $490 million of city funds previously directed toward technology would now be diverted toward building more schools to alleviate overcrowding for smaller classes, creating 4,900 more seats, and the rest toward creating 2,100 seats for pre-kindergarten.

As the analysis in our report Space Crunch makes clear, the city's school capital plan is badly underfunded as is. Though it will includes less than 40,000 additional seats if the Bond Act is approved – and even fewer if it isn't – the real need is at least 100,000 seats, given existing overcrowding and projections of increased enrollment over the next five to ten years.

Moreover, we have thousands of kindergarten children on waiting lists for their zoned school each year, and many thousands more sitting in trailers, temporary structures which are long past their expected lifetime and many leaky and rotting away. While the New York Times reported 7,158 students in trailers, the real figure is likely more than 10,000 students, since the lower number does not include any of the thousands of high school students or many disabled children attending classes in these substandard structures.

I understand the reluctance of parents outside the city who fear wasted funds on computer devices, as in the Los Angeles iPad scandal, which led to the resignation of their superintendent, or the Amplify tablet fiasco in Guilford, North Carolina. Like them, I also oppose the proliferation of online testing and instruction, which is motivated primarily by the desire to eliminate teachers and to benefit data-mining educational technology companies, eager to make a buck off our kids. Class Size Matters successfully led the fight to stop the state's plan to share personal student information with the corporation called inBloom Inc., designed to facilitate the incursion of data-mining vendors in schools, and inBloom closed its doors last spring.

Yet voters elsewhere in the state have elected school boards and should be actively engaged in the decision-making of how to best use the proceeds of the Bond Act. In addition, all parents have the right to opt out of any online data-mining instructional or testing program that collects personal data, whether their children participate in this program at school or home, according to the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). They should exercise that right if they so choose. Class Size Matters and the national coalition we co-chair, the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy, will work to make sure that all parents are informed of their right to do so. We will also continue to fight for the right of children to be able to learn in smaller classes where they receive the personal attention of their teachers in uncrowded schools – and that's why I'm voting for Proposition 3 on Tuesday, and urge others to do the same.

***
Leonie Haimson is the Executive Director of Class Size Matters. Follow her on twitter @leoniehaimson

Report Shows Extent of Racialized Criminalization over last 30 years


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PC Bratton gives a briefing (photo: @NYPDNews)


This week's report on the frequency and distribution of misdemeanor arrests from 1980 to today from John Jay College of Criminal Justice provides clear evidence of what many have known for years. The NYPD is engaged in a wide-ranging social experiment in the mass criminalization of poor non-white New Yorkers.

The report shows that misdemeanor arrests have increased from about 60,000 a year in the early 80s to almost 250,000 today. Last year the arrest rate for whites was 1.2 percent, compared to an arrest rate of 6.4 percent for blacks and 4.4 percent for Hispanics.

Misdemeanor arrest rates for all three groups almost doubled from 1990 to 2010. White rates rose from 0.7 percent in 1990 to a high of 1.4 percent in 2011, black rates rose from a low of 3.6 percent in 1990 to a high of 7.5 percent in 2010. Hispanics saw a smaller increase, from 2.5 percent in 1990 to a high of 4.7 percent in 2010.

The bulk of the charges seen in this massive expansion involve low-level drug enforcement, especially of marijuana, prohibitions against commercial sex work, the many disorderly activities associated with living on the streets, and a variety of minor offenses mostly engaged in by young people such as graffiti and riding a bike on the sidewalk.

A shocking 25% of all misdemeanor arrests since 1980 have been for low-level drug violations, including 1 million arrests for marijuana.

The impact on the youngest New Yorkers has been the starkest. 16-17 year olds, who are treated as adults in New York State, saw their rate of arrest jump from 3.2% in 1980 to over 10% in in 2010. That means one in every ten 16-17 year olds was arrested for a misdemeanor in 2010.

Since these arrests are heavily concentrated in communities of color, in some places closer to 3 in every 10 young men in this age group face arrest each year. While that rate has since declined some, we are saddling these young people with permanent arrest records for low level drug involvement, jumping the turnstile, and playground fights in mind numbing numbers. The involvement of police in school safety enforcement has only worsened that trend by criminalizing schoolroom misbehavior as well.

During the 30-year period covered by the report, there has been an explosive increase in poverty and homelessness in New York City, especially among communities of color. African-Americans in particular are poorer and more socially isolated. Our City's response to this profound growth in inequality has been mass criminalization through the War on Drugs and the drive to eliminate "quality of life" problems through heavy-handed zero-tolerance policing, spurred on by a slavish adherence to the unproven "Broken Windows" theory. There is no substantial evidence that this massive expansion in misdemeanor arrests for drug violations, sex work, youthful misbehavior, and the activities associated with living out of doors is responsible for what is an international drop in crime. Hundreds of cities around the world have enjoyed major decreases in crime during this same period without relying on these techniques.

There is, however, clear evidence of the negative consequences of the increased usage of misdemeanor arrests on those arrested and the communities they come from. While disorderly behaviors have been reduced by aggressive policing, it has also torn apart families, destroyed livelihoods, and alienated many from the police, work, and city services.

In addition, the social problems being criminalized by the NYPD have shown no signs of improvement. Unemployment among young men of color remains at very high levels—in some communities topping 50%. Homelessness has increased throughout the period of the report. At the same time, drug use and drug availability remain pervasive, as does access to commercial sex. In other words, life for the poorest New Yorkers remains desperate and their problems are typically compounded by intensive criminalization.

Even if the massive increase in misdemeanor arrests was somehow responsible for a part of the crime decline, the social and financial costs are too high. The high costs of police time, court time, and over $100,000 per bed per year to run the prison on Rikers Island, means the arrest and jailing of people for even short periods is a gross misuse of limited city resources. The intensive criminalization of almost entirely minority populations flies in the face of any effort to reduce inequality, create equal opportunities for all, and improve the real quality of life in minority communities.

We must find lasting solutions to inequality that don't rely on criminalization. Drug use and drug dealing, sex work, and the disorderly behaviors associated with living on the streets are very real social problems, but criminalization at best papers over these problems and in some cases makes the problems and the lives of those involved worse. Resources devoted to criminalization must be repurposed to initiatives designed to create pathways out of homelessness and poverty. We must stop relying on homeless shelters, emergency rooms, and jails to deal with people living on the streets, we must find real economic opportunities for young people of color that take into account the challenges of educational failure, discrimination, and long-term poverty.

We can start with increasing permanent housing with transitional support services for those most in need, a massive expansion in public housing, and reforms to make living conditions better could improve life for hundreds of thousands. We need a major increase in the minimum wage to ensure that those who are working make enough to steer clear from participation in black markets. We need an increase in the standard of living for city employees, who have endured decades of austerity contracts, which has contributed to a thinning out of the middle class in the city, and we need further investment in non-punitive anti-violence initiatives for young people with wraparound services.

Finally we must decriminalize drugs and sex work and address whatever concrete harms are associated with them through community-based initiatives that don't rely on the police, courts, and jails.

The mayor is beginning to pursue some of these strategies, but the needs are huge and resources limited. He should stop wasting precious resources on criminalization and put them where they will do more good than harm.

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Alex S. Vitale is associate professor of sociology at Brooklyn College and author of City of Disorder: How the Quality of Life Campaign Transformed New York Politics. He is senior policy adviser to hte Police Reform Organizing Project and serves on the New York State Advisory Committee to the US Civil Rights Commission. You can follow him on Twitter: @avitale



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