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Packing and Slicing the Jewish Vote: TJH Speaks with Rabbi Yeruchim Silber
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 E orts
BY SUSAN SCHWAMM
Rabbi Silber, New York State is in the process of redistricting its legislative districts. Can of redistricting its legislative districts. Can you give us some background on the process? 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 SenEvery population is counted. In terms of the Senate, every state gets two representatives regardate, every state gets two representatives regardless of population. But Congressional and less of population. But Congressional and state legislative seats – State Senate and state legislative seats – State Senate and State Assembly – are based on popuState 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?
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.
Rabbi Silber with Sen. Todd Kaminsky and members of the Five Towns in Albany in March 2020
Based on that definition, there’s nothing more of a community of interest than the Orthodox community. We share a culture, we share a religion, we share a history, we share economic interests. We also go to the same schools, same stores, same shuls, same kosher shops, same community centers. We’re a very, very strong community of interest. No one’s going to argue that point.
The other thing that they need to keep in mind when dividing districts is that there are certain protected minorities going back to 1965, which means most communities of color are protective minorities that sort of have to be taken into account when dividing districts. The Orthodox community is not considered a protected minority by law, although we technically should be.
What benefits do they have to be called a protected minority?
Basically, they’re what was defined in 1965 – the African American, Hispanic community, Asian communities are protected minorities. You can’t slice them up when you’re creating districts.
There are a lot of clever ways to make districts. Do you know what gerrymandering is?
Well, just to explain again, gerrymandering is configuring a district to maximize advantage to whatever party is in control at that time. If the Republicans are in control, they’ll divide it up in their favor; if the Democrats are in control, they’ll divide it up in their favor.
The two ways through gerrymandering to divide a district is called “packing” and “slicing.” Say, for example, you’re a Republican. You can “pack” all the Democrats into one area, which will guarantee that a Democrat will win in that area, but your Republican constituents are spread out in other districts and will bring in Republican candidates who will win in all those other districts.
Or, you can “slice” up the district, and dice up all the Democrats into little slivers in many districts, so their power is very watered down and there’s no real way for them to make an impact.
For around 10 years – after the census 10 years ago – the Orthodox community was, in a way, both “packed” and “sliced.” I’ll give you some examples. Brooklyn has the largest Orthodox community, with most of Borough Park, Flatbush, Sheepshead Bay, Midwood, Graveshead, and Marine Park. It’s one contiguous area with a large Orthodox population, a few hundred thousand people. That Orthodox area is spread out over four different Congressional districts. Each district has no more than 10 to 15 percent of the Orthodox community. Not one of those districts has a single office in the Orthodox community’s area. You can call your representative but there is not one Congressional office in any of the Orthodox areas. In that way, we were really “sliced” up.
Who is the congressperson for the Midwood area or Sheepshead Bay?
The community has four representatives split up between them. You have Jerry Nadler, Yvette Clarke, Hakeem Jeffries, and Nicole Malliotakis. Some areas in Williamsburg are represented by Nydia Velazquez, so it’s really five representatives.
Our community is very “sliced up,” in this way. So, for example, Yvette Clarke is pretty much based in Crown Heights. And Hakeem Jeffries is based in Canarsie. And Nicole Malliotakis is more of a Staten Island. Nadler is more of a West Side representative. We’re not more than 10-15% of each district, which makes us not a significant force in the district.
What we just spoke about was talking about Congress. In terms of the State Senate, we have a super-Jewish district, with the Simcha Felder district. That’s where they really “packed” us all into one district in a way. But the outlying areas that are not part of that district have representation spread out over four or five different districts, giving us watered down representation in those districts.
And then in the Assembly, you have the 48th Assembly District with Simcha Eichenstein, but the rest of the community is spread out into five different ones. Instead of having two Assembly districts for our community which would make sense – we could easily support two Assembly districts or two State Senate districts – you have one district which is a packed district, and then the rest are sliced. So we’re partially packed, partially sliced.
Let me give you one more example. The Town of Ramapo, which is most of greater Monsey and Spring Valley, is split into three Assembly districts. It’s the only town in the entire state that is divided into three districts. So the community there is really sliced up and that truly dilutes any power the community may have.
Do you think that it was a deliberate action to slice and dice our community when they redistricted ten years ago?
I don’t prescribe motives to people. I’m just dealing with the facts on the ground. What the intention was, I don’t know.
But, what I will say, is that other communities were higher priorities and they were taken care of. We may have been left with the scraps, so to speak.
Did we, as a community, make any noise 10 years ago when they were redistricting?
Not enough.
In the past, the way it worked, until 10 years ago, was that for many years in New York State, the Republicans controlled the Senate, and the Democrats controlled the Assembly. So basically, the Senate Republicans made the lines for the Senate districts because they controlled the Senate. And the Democrats made the lines for the Assembly because they were in control. And there was some sort of a compromise when it came to Congress. But the lines were drawn purely by the legislature.
In 2014, there was a voting referendum, and the people in New York voted to form a commission, an independent commission, to deal with drawing the legislative lines for the districts. This was rather wise because the whole idea of gerrymandering comes from partisan reapportionment because every party obviously wants to reapportion to their advantage. So an independent commission sounds very good.
The independent commission basically says, “We’re totally independent based on the community’s interests and geography without looking into who could win, which party or person should win – we just want to form fair districts.”
Part of the intention of the commission was to make sure the community of interests are kept together as well.
The commission has ten members – there are equal numbers of the Democrats and Republicans in the commission. The commission works to come up with lines for districts. The legislature will then
Rabbi Silber with politicians and community activists in Albany in March 2020
vote on these lines and can accept them or they can reject them.
The commission started late this time around because the census was late because of COVID. This past summer, they had a series of hearings throughout the state before they released any maps to give people a chance to speak up and say what they would like to see in the new legislative maps.
Many of us testified at those hearings. Our message, during those hearings, was that we want to be consolidated as a community and we don’t want to be sliced and diced.
In September, the commission released two maps of the proposed districts because they could not agree on one map. There was a Republican version and a Democratic version.
Isn’t that interesting? That the independent commission is releasing two different maps – one Republican and one Democrat?
Yes. Because they couldn’t agree on one map. Definitely ironic.
One map, the Republican map, linked Borough Park to the Five Towns in one Congressional district. It was basically all along the water into the Five Towns. It would be a very interesting district.
In November, they began a set of hearings in different regions throughout the state. This is a second round of hearings – they did the first round in the summer, as we discussed. In this month’s hearings, people can comment on the two maps they came out with or they brought their own maps. We testified last week in the Brooklyn hearings and in the Queens hearings.
In your testimony, are you advocating for the Republican drawn maps or the Democratic version?
None of them. I was advocating for our community to be consolidated into maximum two or three Congressional districts.
Did you put forth your own maps?
We’re working on it. We should be putting them out next week. Our coalition actually has a call this week to produce our own maps with a mapmaker. would actually redraw the maps based on what you suggest?
Well, we’ll hope, but the process isn’t over yet.
There was a lot of talk before the election to vote down certain proposals. So now, because the proposals were voted down, two interesting things happened.
Number one, there is now a deadline of January 15 for the commission to submit the maps. Once they submit it to the Legislature, the Legislature can accept it or reject it. If they reject it, they have until February 28 to produce a second set of maps which could be accepted or rejected. And if those
maps are rejected, then the Legislature has the right to produce their own maps.
The timing now is very tight. Primaries are being held in June this year. It’s very tough to prepare for a primary in June if maps are redrawn in February. But this deadline does help us because the Legislature may be inclined to accept the maps or make minor adjustments to them, so they don’t draw out the process.
The second part of the ballot proposal that was voted down says that if there is split control in the Legislature – at the time that this was passed, in 2014, the Republicans controlled the Senate and the Democrats controlled the Assembly – all you need to pass the lines is a majority of votes to pass. But, if one party controls both houses – as is the case now, that the Democrats control both houses – you need a two-third majority to pass. The proposal on the ballot in the elections this year wanted to do away with the two-thirds majority rule. But that proposal didn’t pass, and the Democrats need a two-thirds majority to approve the lines.
So what came out of the ballot proposals this year is that the Democrats need a two-thirds majority to approve the lines and the commission has until February 28th to submit its maps.
Let’s talk about the recent elections in which Democrats suffered tremendous losses in our community. Do you think that the Democrats would consider our community more strongly in the redistricting process because of the losses they faced?
I think that the ramification of the election results is that they’re going to empower moderates in the State Senate – people like Joe Addabbo, Peter Harckham, James Skoufis, and Anna Kaplan. There is a group of suburban moderates, and I think they’re going to push back on some of the extreme legislation that’s coming from the left.
How can the community get involved in the redistricting process?
The public testimony is over, but they can still submit written testimony to NYIRC.gov.
Will the Agudah be giving people sample letters of what they can submit to the commission?
Well, we can consider that. With these letters, you need to be very specific. A different letter needs to be written for each community. We have people working in every community and sending out letters.
People need to know that redistricting takes place every ten years and really affects our representation for the next decade. If our segment only represents 10% of an area, then our representatives don’t care about us. They could do whatever they want with our community’s interests. But if we’re 30 or 40 percent of a district, then we will make a difference in a district, and we truly count. Our interests will be important to those who are our representatives.
