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DECEMBER 2, 2021 | The Jewish Home OCTOBER 29, 2015 | The Jewish Home
Packing and Slicing the Jewish Vote TJH Speaks with Rabbi Yeruchim Silber, Agudah’s New York Director of Government Relations, about New York State’s Redistricting Efforts BY SUSAN SCHWAMM
Rabbi Silber, New York State is in the process of redistricting its legislative districts. Can you give us some background on the process? As you know, every 10 years, there’s a census. Every population is counted. In terms of the Senate, every state gets two representatives regardless of population. But Congressional and state legislative seats – State Senate and State Assembly – are based on population. In this past census, New York State lost one Congressional seat. The whole Congressional makeup throughout the country – all 435 seats – is proportion-based per state. Actually, it was very sad because had New York had 80 more people counted in the census, we would have stayed at 27 seats. But now, we went down one seat.
Eighty more people. That’s all that was needed to keep that seat? Yes, 80 more people. Instead,
that seat went to Minnesota. So now, New York has 26 Congressional seats, and those seats need to be reapportioned based on the population changes. And the same thing took place with the State Senate seats. There are 63 State Senate seats, and 150 New York State Assembly seats. These seats all have to reapportioned based on population changes. For example, in the Senate system, each State Senator represents around 340,000 people. In the State Assembly, it’s around 130,000 – these are just approximations, of course. Now, because of population shifts, they need to reapportion these seats by districts according to the populations, so each district is represented equally by their representatives – whether it’s in the State Senate or the Assembly or in Congress.
How will they be dividing up the districts? There’s a number of ways. Obviously, you want to keep counties intact and towns intact, but we also have something called “communities of interest.” This is a very important thing. A community of interest is a geographic area that shares cultural, historical, or economic interests.
