News
‘Unity Map’ proposal aims to help in redistricting
NY Daily News — Advocates representing Asian, Latino and African-American New Yorkers are trying to get a jump on the politically charged redistricting process by releasing their own ideas for how borders should be redrawn.
The groups released a “Unity Map” yesterday with district lines they say better represent the changing population of the city.
It would create additional Asian-American majority Assembly districts in parts of Elmhurst, Woodside, Flushing and Bayside.
The proposed map would also keep portions of Richmond Hill and Ozone Park – which have a large South Asian and Indo-Caribbean community – from being splintered into six different Assembly districts.
Another Assembly district would extend through Floral Park, Queens Village, Bellerose, Glen Oaks and into Nassau County to include the large number of South Asian-Americans who live in those neighborhoods.
“The current districts are out of wack with the population and someone has to redraw the lines,” said Juan Cartagena, president of LatinoJustice. “The goal is to make sure these three groups, protected under the Voting Rights Act, will get a fair shot at electing candidates.”
Legislative district lines across the country are being reconfigured to reflect changes in the 2010 Census.
New district boundaries, critics charge, are often gerrymandered to help incumbents and political parties – hurting local communities in the process.
Lawyers and policymakers from the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, LatinoJustice, National Institute for Latino Policy, and the Center for Law and Social Justice of Medgar Evers College worked on the Unity Map for several months as they crunched the new Census data.
They submitted their proposal to a legislative task force that is holding hearings around the state to gather input for new maps. Its recommendations will be reviewed by lawmakers and Gov. Cuomo.
Under the Unity Map plan, the number of Hispanic majority Assembly districts in the city would increase from 13 to 16 and the number of state Senate districts from five to seven.
Margaret Fung of AALDEF pointed out that Asian-Americans are not counted as a majority in any current state Senate district. The Unity Map would create one such district in Flushing and Bayside.
To view the Unity Map, click here.
By Lisa Colangelo