The "cat-eyed tree-snake coiled around a branch, is locked in an [existential] "embrace" with a Morelet's treefrog, a critically endangered species." Photograph byDavid Maitland

It appears from maps published by the Center for Urban Research, CUNY that Elmont will be redistricted into 3 senate districts.  This practically means that Elmont's voting strength would be so diluted (cracked) that the community would have no essential role in selecting a State Senator for the next decade.  Further, in what appears to be a cynical ploy, one of the three districts moves portions of Elmont into SenatorSmith's Queens Senate District 14.

Yesterday, the NY State "Legislative Task Force On Demographic Research And Reappointment" unveiled its proposed maps for redrawn State Senate and Assembly districts. And they are really horrible. For instance, here's how the AP describes the maps: "Among the proposed [Senate] districts are six now represented by Democrats in Queens which would be reduced to three, forcing potential two-way battles by incumbent Democrats in one district in the shape of a lobster," ...

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All the world’s a stage, and redistricting in New York is the main act

Sen. Martin Dilan was fidgeting throughout a recent meeting of the legislative task force on redistricting.

It was one of the last of the group’s dozens of public hearings before drafting new lines for election districts. Dilan, representing the Senate Democratic Conference on the task force, was upset about a memo from a Senate Republican lawyer that advocated for a 63rd Senate seat. The memo had been placed on the LATFOR website late on a Friday, with no Democratic input.

Dilan was not happy.

“We can see what the outcome is going to be here,” Dilan said, rigid with tension in a room filled with reporters and interested onlookers. “It will be the same one it has been for 50 years.”

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..."two significant events in the ongoing battle to redraw New York State’s electoral map. In the first, the legislature’s redistricting committee formally subtracted the state’s 60,000-plus prisoners from the population count of the communities where they are incarcerated and instead counted them as residents of their districts of origin – a hard-fought victory for Democrats that was fiercely opposed by Republicans in New York’s closely contested State Senate. Days later, a lawyer for Senate Republicans released a memo calling to expand the size of the Senate to 63 seats, drawing howls of protest from Democrats."

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