| These are the major changes. I'm not going in-depth on some of the small shifts we'll need to maintain population equity. Here's the way I deal with some of the previously discussed issues:
I eliminate NY-26 and NY-22. Hinchey's district is horribly drawn and should be eliminated.
I give most of the eastern part of his district to NY-20, other than Newburgh and Orange County (which are merged back into NY-19 and the rest of Orange).
I give the Binghamton and Delaware parts of that district to Arcuri, who already represents some of Broome.
Most important, I put Ithaca into Massa's district. Ithaca gives him a great base, which allows Massa's district to expand into Wyoming County and other Republican areas in the southern part of NY-26.
The rest of NY-26 is merged into Slaughter's district.
One major complaint about my methodology is the lack of even population centers. Let me make a few points on population:
1) My estimate is that the New York downstate regions (Westchester/Rockland + NYC + Long Island) hold about 13 million of the close to 18 million. The Albany metropolitan area is another million or so, which leaves 5 million for the rest of upstate. My map has 6 "pure" upstate districts. That would approximate out into 833k per district, while Amherst Guy's quote was 770k or so. The old NY-20 takes part of this population, so we're relatively close to the target number. We can tweak certain things in the north-eastern districts to get the right population spread. The numbers are possible but we have to agree on what our numbers are. I estimate Upstate (minus the Albany metro area) at 5 million, not 8 million.
2) You just can't justify eliminating seats downstate. The population vacuum in New York came from upstate New York. It is absurdly unfair to punish Long Island or Westchester or even New York City for upstate's population loss. Sorry guys, it's not an option. |
