New York State Senate

There was a special election on February 6th for a State Senate district on Long island in New York. Now, that may seem like a trivial issue, but in reality State legislative elections affect all of us as much or perhaps even more than national elections. In nearly all states (Iowa and Minnesota being the exceptions), state legislatures draw the boundaries of districts for the House of Representatives. Control of redrawing boundaries after each census (and sometimes, highly unethically, between censuses, as in Texas in 2003 and Georgia in 2005) allows state legislatures to dictate how many national districts will go to each party.

What? Surely it is the people who elect their representatives! Well, yes and no. People are predictable. The number of people who split their ballots, or who cross party lines, is relatively few. A district that voted for Kerry by more than 3% or for Bush by more than 6% in 2004* will vote for that party at least nine times out of ten. So, state legislatures generally draw districts that favor the party in control of the legislature. (Occasionally, as in California in 2001, they draw boundaries that are simply meant to favor the incumbents.) What does this have to do with a special election in New York? A lot. The New York State Senate has been Republican-controlled for a long, long, long time while the State House has been Democratic-controlled for even longer. In this special election, the Democrats came one seat closer to winning control of the New York State Senate, and,w ith it, the ability to redistrict new York in their favor in 2011.

Right now, New York has 23 Democratic Representatives and 6 Republicans. Current projections indicate that New York will lose two seats in the 2010 census. If the Republicans still control the State Senate in 2011, the Democrats will have to compromise, and one or possibly even both of the two lost seats will be Democratic-leaning ones. On the other hand, if the Republicans lose control of the State Senate, the Democrats will be able to ensure that both disappearing seats are Republican, and may even be able to carve up another Republican district enough to squeeze a Democratic gain out.

That's -3 GOP, +1 Dem. I'd say each special election in the New York State Senate matters quite a bit. The composition is now 33 GOP, 29 DEM, and two GOPers have reportedly been considering switching parties. (The Lieutenant Governor, a Democrat, breaks ties.) Will New York see its first Democratic-controlled State Senate in decades soon?



*Bush districts get a wider margin because he won the popular vote nationwide; if Bush and Kerry had tied, it would be 5% and 5%.