State Legislatures and Redistricting

[cinyc]

Yes they could draw an R+1 district in ME, itd look funny and would cost Obama an electoral vote in 2012.

Also, NHs legislature is now veto proof, so technically not a trifecta, but Lynch doesnt really have a say in anything.

Remember - even an R+1 district leaned Democratic in 2008.  Why?  THe Cook PVI ratings are based on the 2004 and 2008 AVERAGE margin vs. the national margin, and Bush won in 2004. You'd need the 2012 national mood to meet the 2004 and 2008 average in order for an R+1 district to cost Obama an electoral vote.

[cinyc]

So what's the current total in the NY Senate?

30 GOP-29 Dem with 3 undecided, but that article was a few days old, so some have been called by now, most likely.

Nothing has been called in New York.  Absentees can still trickle in as long as they were postmarked before Election Day (I'm not sure about on).  As far as I know, none have even been opened yet - unless they started today.

[cinyc]

Today is the last day for non-military absentees to arrive in New York.  Military absentees can trickle in until November 15.

[cinyc]

Given the state of the N.Y. Senate, the Dems should be at least trying to woo one Republican senator over to their side with the promise of a safe district and some power.

Couldn't Republicans do just the same?

Redistricting and NY's demographics are going to make it difficult to hold their majority in the long term, even if they get another shot to draw the maps for their chamber. The long-term stock for NY Republicans is about as good as that of Mississippi Democrats. Life in the minority in either chamber of the NY legislature is dismal, too.

Reports of the NY Republican demise are greatly exaggerated.  If they can win back the suburbs, they will retain control of the State Senate through the decade.  That rebuilding process began in 2009 and continued to grow in 2010. 

Whether it can continue in the future is an open question, but if Cuomo turns out to be as bad a governor as I expect him to be, it very well may.  The key to state-level politics will be the growing chasm between private and public sector salaries and benefits.  Most Democrats are far too beholden to the public sector to be on the right side of that fight, especially Democrats who were also backed by the Working Families Party (a.k.a. unions, especially the public employee unions).  AG-elect Schneiderman certainly is on the wrong side - and he and Sheldon Silver will be two huge thorns in Cuomo's side, even if he claims not to be as influenced by the public employee unions.

[cinyc]

To answer the initial New York question, some of the absentees have been counted in the LI district.  Democrat Johnson netted 61 votes, and now trails by 427.  I don't know exactly what's left to count, though (military absentees can trickle in until the week of Thanksgiving, I believe) - absentees from two other Assembly districts within the Senate District appear to be part of it.  Two unrelated injunctions supposedly prevent counting absentee/affidavit ballots in the Westchester district, but they finally counted the two missing precincts.   Democrat Oppenheimer leads by 504 with 3,323 emergency, 3,814 absentees and 1,065 affidavit ballots to be counted.    With the Erie County emergency ballots counted, and Democrat Thompson still trails by 597.  The Democrat netted 1 vote in the Erie emergency vote count.    2,700+ absentees and 2,200+ affidavit ballots still remain to be counted.

[cinyc]

Is there any chance that there will be an impasse at New York and the courts draw the map?

Plus, I think that even if Strickland won in Ohio the Republicans would still control the process. I seem to remember that there is a 5-seat panel that handles redistricting and even with Strickland they would have a 4-1 majority.

I doubt it.  More likely than not, Republicans will draw an incumbent-protect Senate map, Democrats an incumbent-protect Assembly map, and both an incumbent-protect House map with some sort of compromise on which district(s) to abolish.  That seems to be what always happens.

[cinyc]

Is there any chance that there will be an impasse at New York and the courts draw the map?

Plus, I think that even if Strickland won in Ohio the Republicans would still control the process. I seem to remember that there is a 5-seat panel that handles redistricting and even with Strickland they would have a 4-1 majority.

I doubt it.  More likely than not, Republicans will draw an incumbent-protect Senate map, Democrats an incumbent-protect Assembly map, and both an incumbent-protect House map with some sort of compromise on which district(s) to abolish.  That seems to be what always happens.

But what's the Democrats incentive to compromise? It's not like that without an incumbent protection map they are in danger of losing the House, or any more congressional seats for that matter.
On the contrary, a court drawn map may throw the senate back to them in two years and then they can proceed to a mid-decade redistricting like Texas and Georgia Republicans did.

Because that's what they've always done.  I don't remember New York maps ever going to a court.  And you don't know how a court is going to draw the lines, in particular, possibly putting some Assembly Democrats at risk.

Incumbent protection always seems to be the default position in New York.

[cinyc]

Reports of the NY Republican demise are greatly exaggerated.  If they can win back the suburbs, they will retain control of the State Senate through the decade.  That rebuilding process began in 2009 and continued to grow in 2010. 

They needed a heavily gerrymandered map and a Republican wave year to get above parity and hold onto 32-30. The next map, even if drawn by Republicans to continue to crack Long Island's minority communities and upstate Democratic districts, will be hampered by the law change making it impossible to county downstate prisoners as residents of underpopulated northern Republican districts. The Democrats aren't holding any untenable districts that I know of, considering that Aubertine and the guy on Suffolk County lost, while the Republican in Buffalo is in a weak position and there are Republicans representing places like Rochester and central Nassau who would be in tough shape even if the suburbs started voting like it was 1988 again.

We'll see what happens next year when we have new maps (likely drawn by Republicans, although with difficulty) and a Presidential election year.

Assuming the Democrat incumbent keeps her narrow lead in SD-37, Democrats hold seats in the Bronx/NYC northern suburbs that can easily go over to the Republicans if redrawn correctly (cramming minority areas of Westchester into a Democratic stronghold district and making a seat or two for Republicans out of the residual).  If I'm not mistaken, two of those seats had two Republican incumbents last time the lines were drawn to try to keep both in power (including one that contained much of the Bronx before the incumbent Republican was indicted).  Westchester and Rockland have enough Republicans that they should be able to elect at least one more Republican to the NYS Senate, if not two.

[cinyc]

Just another day in New York... (With news like this, it's not exactly surprising that the Republicans won back the State Senate.)

Ah, the wonderful Pedro Espada - so corrupt that he was booted from office in the Democratic primary.

Espada is far from the only crook in the New York State Senate.  Members of both parties are extremely corrupt.  They probably could arrest half the body if they seriously looked into their extracurricular activities.   Only a handful have even been brought up on charges so far.  

[cinyc]

California officially proved how idiotic it is in voting when even the most liberal state in the union had a net loss of Democrats in the state legislature and it didn't.

Please continue remarking about how the voters of your state didn't vote like the rest of the country.  It is relevant.

[cinyc]

I updated my state legislatures table with the latest information I have:
http://members.cox.net/rbt48/weather/Presidential_Elections/2010_State_Legislatures_post_election.pdf
If anyone has updated information, please post that intel.  I'm curious about the undecided state house seats in Indiana (1), New York (2), and Massachusetts (1).

As far as I know, there's only one Assembly seat up in the air in New York - AD 100 in Dutchess/Orange/Ulster.  The Republican won reelection in the close Westchester AD.  The Assembly is at 99-50.  I think Republicans need 51 to stave off a party-line veto override (which is kind of irrelevant with a Democratic governor, though).