Will New York's Congressional Maps Be Redrawn?
The Brian Lehrer Show
WNYC
4.6 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 14 July 2023
⏱️ 39 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On Thursday, an appellate court in New York ordered the state’s congressional map to be redrawn, giving Democrats a chance to reshape the political landscape ahead of the 2024 election. Jeff Wice, adjunct professor and senior fellow at New York Law School, where he directs the New York Census and Redistricting Institute, offers important historical context and discusses the political implications of the legal dispute.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It's the Bryan Lair Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. We'll start with some big 2024 election |
| 0:14.3 | news that came out right after yesterday's show. Maybe you've heard the headline, |
| 0:18.0 | A New York State Appeals Court threw out the state's congressional district lines. |
| 0:23.5 | If the ruling stands, an independent redistricting commission will have to redraw them from scratch. |
| 0:29.6 | Democrats are encouraged, Republicans are ticked off, and while this might sound like |
| 0:34.7 | parochial New York politics infighting, the way this turns out is actually important to every |
| 0:40.0 | single American whose interests are at stake in national politics. Because as we saw last year, |
| 0:45.6 | control of Congress flipped from Democrat to Republican largely because of the new Republican |
| 0:51.5 | friendly districts that help give us the likes of George Santos and that squeeze Congressman |
| 0:57.3 | like Monday Jones and Sean Patrick Maloney out in what we use to think of simply as blue New York. |
| 1:03.5 | But no matter what side you're on, what a mess. Is there any good way to establish congressional |
| 1:08.7 | districts in any state that's not just about partisan advantage, but that's as fair as possible |
| 1:14.4 | to every resident and that is really the best way to have an electoral democracy. Let's talk about |
| 1:20.2 | all this. My guest is Jeff Weiss. He is a redistricting expert. In fact, he's director of the New |
| 1:26.8 | York Census and Redistricting Institute at New York Law School. He was a long time counsel to the |
| 1:32.8 | New York State Legislature. That's whose lines the court threw out last year. And as far back as |
| 1:38.3 | the 1980s, according to his bio page, he developed the first National Democratic Party Redistricting |
| 1:44.8 | Assistance Program and then served on President Clinton's Census Monitoring Board. Jeff, |
| 1:50.4 | thanks for coming on to this. Welcome to WNYC. It's a pleasure to be with you this morning. Thank you. |
| 1:55.9 | What I want to do is actually start on the big picture and then look at what's happening in New York |
| 2:01.3 | right now that could help decide control of Congress in next year's crucial elections. So |
| 2:06.4 | civics first, politics second, okay? Okay. And so why does the House of Representatives have |
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