Reply Affidavit of Todd Breitbart, Favors v. Cuomo case, April 4, 2012

8/2/2019 Reply Affidavit of Todd Breitbart, Favors v. Cuomo case, April 4, 2012

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SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF NEW YORKCOUNTY OF NEW YORK___________________________________________x

DANIEL MARKS COHEN; RAQUEL BATISTA; Index No. 12-102185

PURVA BEDI; TODD BREITBART; RAYMOND W.ENGEL; JACQUELINE G. FORRESTAL;PATRICK L. FURLONG; ANDREW KULYK;JERRY C. LEE; IRENE VAN SLYKE; and SENATOR REPLYMARTIN MALAV DILAN, AFFIDAVIT OF

TODD BREITBART

Petitioners,

-against-

GOVERNOR ANDREW M. CUOMO; LIEUTENANT

GOVERNOR AND PRESIDENT OF THE SENATEROBERT J. DUFFY; SENATE MAJORITYLEADER AND PRESIDENT PRO TEMPORE OFTHE SENATE DEAN G. SKELOS; SPEAKER OFTHE ASSEMBLY SHELDON SILVER; and THENEW YORK STATE BOARD OF ELECTIONS,

Respondents.___________________________________________x

STATE OF NEW YORK ) ss.:COUNTY OF NEW YORK )

TODD BREITBART, being duly sworn, deposes and says under penalty of perjury as

follows:

1. I directed the staff work on redistricting for successive Minority (Democratic)Leaders of the New York State Senate from 1980 through my retirement at the end of 2005. I

had extensive experience drafting redistricting proposals, and evaluating the proposals of others,

according to the provisions of Article III, Section 4 of the New York State Constitution and

supervening federal requirements, including 14th Amendment population equality standards and

the Voting Rights Act of 1965. I submitted an affidavit as an expert witness for the Plaintiffs in

Case 1:11-cv-05632-DLI-RR-GEL Document 289-2 Filed 04/04/12 Page 1 of 48 PageID #:4459


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Rodriguez v. Pataki (2004), and as such I was deposed by counsel for the Defendants and noticed

for cross-examination (although the Defendants later chose to forego the cross-examination). In

2007, I was the principal consultant to the Committee on Election Law of the Bar Association of

the City of New York in the development of the Associations report on reform of the New York

State redistricting process,A Proposed New York State Constitutional Amendment to Emancipate

Redistricting from Partisan Gerrymanders: Partisanship Channeled for Fair Line-Drawing

(March 2007), and I was the principal drafter of the text of the report. Participating in the 2011-

12 redistricting process, no longer as a legislative staff member, but independently as a

concerned citizen, I testified four times before LATFOR and submitted voluminous writtentestimony on several aspects of the process, including the determination of the number of Senate

districts. I submitted for LATFORs consideration a thoroughly developed and extensively

documented proposal for a 62-seat Senate. I also am a Petitioner in this special proceeding. I

submit this Affirmation in support of Petitioners Petition pursuant to Unconsolidated Laws

4221 to enjoin Respondents from enforcing Chapter 16 of the Laws of 2012 (Chapter 16),

which, among other things, increased the size of the State Senate to 63 seats from 62.

2. As Petitioners Reply Memorandum of Law in Further Support of the Petition (theReply Brief) discusses in detail, this redistricting cycle is the first time everthat the Legislature

has used Method A and Method B in the same redistricting. The Senate Majority Leaders

Memorandum of Law offers several asserted historical justifications for using Methods A and B

together, but the Majority Leaders view of history is totally unsupported by actual historical

fact.



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3. Under Article III, Section 4 of the New York Costitution (Section 4), a countyor pair of counties does not become relevant for the Senate-size calculation until it reaches 6% of

the States total population, or 3 full ratios.

4. Because they were too small to warrant their own disricts, numerous countieswere combined into shared Senate districts in the 1894 Constitution. These include Delaware,

Chenango, and Sullivan Counties, which shared Senate District 26 in 1894, and Otsego and

Herkimer Counties, which together comprised District 33. None of these counties has ever come

close to having three full ratios separately or in combination, and therefore they have never

affected the Senate size calculation under Section 4.5. Richmond and Suffolk Counties together comprised District 1 in 1894. From

1894 through and including the 1960 Census, neither Richmond nor Suffolk individually, nor

Richmond andSuffolk as a pair, reached the 6% (or three full ratios) threshold. According to

the 1960 Census, the total citizen population of New York State was 16,240,786, yielding a

ratio for that year of 324,816. (Citizen population was used as the apportionment basis until

the addition of Section 5-a to Article III in 1970.) The citizen population of Richmond County

was 216,764 in 1960, or 0.67 ratios. The citizen population of Suffolk County was 650,112 in

1960, or 2.00 ratios. Under either Method A (2.67 ratios) or Method B (two full ratios),

Richmond-Suffolk did not play any role in the 1960 Section 4 Senate-size calculus.

6. But by the 1970 Census, Richmond and Suffolk counties had grown enough totogether reach three full ratios underboth Method A and Method B. According to the 1970

Census, the total population of New York State was 18,241,266, yielding a ratio for that year

of 364,825.1 The population of Richmond County in 1970 was 295,443, or .81 ratios. Suffolk

1 These population figures are taken from the Interim Report. See Ex. 1. The latest



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Countys population was 1,127,030, or 3.09 ratios. These population numbers yielded 3.90

ratios under Method A for Richmond-Suffolk, or 3 full ratios under Method B, making

Richmond-Suffolk relevant to the Senate size calculus in 1972 for the very first time. But both

Method A and Method B yielded the same number of seats, since both allotted Richmond-

Suffolk three full ratios, but less than four full ratios.

7. In 1972, when the Legislature for the first time used Method A for all counties, itprovided detailed and elaborate explanations and support for its actions, all of which was

submitted to the State courts in Schneider v. Rockefellerand its companion case,In re Schwartz.

This evidentiary support included the Interim Report of the Joint Legislative Committee onReapportionment, dated December 14, 1971 (the Interim Report), and attached hereto as

Exhibit 1. In the Interim Report, the Joint Legislative Committee on Reapportionment (the

Committee) provided a thoughtful and lengthy analysis supporting its recommendation that the

Legislature abandoned Method B in favor of Method A forallcounty combinations in 1972. In

litigating Schneiderand Schwartz, the Legislature also submitted several sworn affidavits,

including of Assistant Attorney General George D. Zuckerman, which Affidavit described the

Interim Report as carefully explain[ing] the basis for switching from Method B to Method A

for all county combinations. The Zuckerman Affidavit is attached hereto as Exhibit 2.

8. Now, in 2012, the Legislature hasfor the first time in history used Method A andMethod B in the same redistricting plan, without offering any evidence in support of this

unprecedented methodology.

tabulation from 1970 Census counts, which Petitioners cited in their Petition and openingMemorandum of Law, contain slightly different population numbers, but the small differences donot affect Senate size computation under either Method A or Method B.



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9. The Legislature undertook to use Method A and Method B together for nakedlypolitically partisan reasons that far exceed the measure of deference courts, including the Court

of Appeals in Schneider, have afforded it even when it is engaged in the inherently subjective

process of drawing district lines. Several characteristics of the Legislatures plan make its

improper motives clear, particularly when compared to the 62-district Senate Alternative

Revisionplan, which I submitted to LATFOR on February 15, 2012, and which is publicly

available on LATFORs website. See http://latfor.state.ny.us/justice2012/?sec=sendoj2012,

plan_submission_19, under the heading, Joint Exhibit 22 Alternative Plan Proposals. I also

submitted to LATFOR a narrative comparing the Senate Alternative Revision to LATFORsJanuary 26, 2012 proposal, which Chapter 16 of the Laws of 2012 largely adopted. Although the

Chapter 16 Senate Plan has some diffeences from the initial proposal, my narrative comparison

is still valid in all relevant respects. Seeid., plan_submission_19, doc. 5: The Senate

Alternative Revision 12 February 2012 and Senate Majority Proposal Compared.

10. First, the Legislatures plan, as codified in Chapter 16 of the Laws of 2012 (theChapter 16 Senate Plan) contains extreme population deviations that have no justificication

and are unnecessary. The deviation statistics for the Chapter 16 Senate Plan are:

Total deviation (range between most and least populous districts): 27,034 Total deviation %: 8.80% Mean deviation %: 3.67% Standard deviation: 3.85%

The deviation statistics for the Senate Alternative Revision are:

Total deviation: 18,591 Total deviation %: 5.95% Mean deviation %: 1.10% Standard deviation %: 1.29%



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The Senate Alternative Revision has no district with a population as much as 4% above the ideal

population, only two with populations more than 3% above the ideal, and none with a population

as much as 3% below the ideal. By contrast, the Chapter 16 Senate Plan has 23 districts with a

population more than 4% below the ideal, and 26 districts with a population more than 3% above

the ideal. Neither plan has a district with a population more than 4% above the ideal.

11. The Chapter 16 Senate Plan also engages in unnecsesary and improper regionalmalapportionment, which again is starkly clear when comparing that plan to the Senate

Alternative Plan. In the Chapter 16 Senate Plan, the 26 districts wholly or partly within New

York Cityincluding two Bronx/Westchester districts, SDs 34 and 36, which respectively have94.4% and 80.5% of their populations within New York Cityhave an aggregate population of

8,276,194, enough for 26.93 districts of the mean population (307,356).2 All of the New York

City districts have populations 3.47% or 3.83% above the mean. The two adjoining districts

wholly within Westchester County, SDs 35 and 37, have populations virtually at the mean

(positive deviations of 107 persons, +0.03%, in each). The 26 districts to the north and west,

SDs 38-63, have an aggregate population of 7,635,808, enough for only 24.84 districts of the

mean population. By contrast, the Senate Alternative Revision shows an entirely different

pattern. There, the 27 proposed districts wholly or partly within New York City (proposed SDs

10-36) have the aggregate population for 26.78 districts of the ideal population. Include the two

adjoining districts in lower Westchester that are part of the same block-on-border cluster

(proposed SDs 37 and 38), and the 29 districts have the population for 28.76 districts of the

2 Throughout this discussion, the current total population figures are based on theredistricting dataset created by LATFOR pursuant to Chapter 57 of the Laws of 2010,subtracting prisoners of state and federal prisons from the places of incarceration and



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ideal population. The Senate Alternative Revisions 26 proposed districts north of New York

City have the population for 26.14 districts of the ideal population.

12. Not only are the deviations smaller on the whole in the Senate AlternativeRevision, but the distribution also is radically different. The upstate region shows a mix of

under- and over-populated districts, and the most and least populous districts are both located

upstate. Indeed, allof the proposed Senate Alternative Revision districts with populations more

than one percent above or below the ideal are located upstate. This is the pattern that results

when population deviations are used for the legitimate purpose of minimizing the division of

counties, as required by the New York State Constitution. The malapportionment of the Chapter16 Senate Plan cannot be explained by any legitimate purpose, and must have been designed for

the purpose of producing the malapportionment.

13. The Chapter 16 Senate Plan also runs afoul of the State Constitutions county-integrity rule, which, although cabined by the Equal Protection Clause of the 14 th Amendment,

must still be observed to the degree that the population equality standard will permit. For

example, Rockland and Albany Counties each have sufficient and correct population to

constitute Senate districts by themselves. But the Chapter 16 Senate Plan divides them both,

and, as is obvious from the promiscuous division of the surrounding counties, neither Albany nor

Rockland is divided so that another nearby county can be kept intact. By contrast, the Senate

Alternative Revision creates one district that is simply Albany County, and another that is simply

Rockland County. Nassau County provides another example. The Chapter 16 Senate Plan

creates three districts wholly within Nassau County, while the Senate Alternative Revision

creates four. So too for Bronx County: The Chapter 16 Senate Plan creates two districts wholly

within Bronx County, while the Senate Alternative Revision creates three. Indeed, there is no



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county in which the Chapter 16 Senate Plan creates more wholly contained districts than the

Senate Alternative Revision. On the other hand, the Senate Alternative Revision creates six more

districts wholly contained within a single county than the Chapter 16 Senate Plan: one each in

Albany, Bronx, Monroe, Nassau, Orange, and Rockland Counties.

14. The Chapter 16 Senate Plan also divides 16 minor countiesi.e., those countiesthat, with respect to redistricting, do not have the population for even one wholly contained

district. Any given minor county might be kept intact within a single district, but some minor

counties almost certainly have to be divided in a plan that complies with the 14th Amendments

population equality requirements. Due respect for the New York Constitution county integrityrule requires, however, that the number of minor counties divided be minimized. The Chapter

16 Senate Plan does not satisfy this requirement, dividing 16 minor counties compared to the

Senate Alternative Revisions division of only seven minorcounties in a plan with a much

smaller overall deviation. The degree to which the Chapter 16 Senate Plan divides individual

minor counties is also remarkable. There, four minor counties are divided among three

districts: Cayuga (SDs 50, 51, and 54), Delaware (SDs 42, 51, and 52), St. Lawrence (SDs 45,

47, and 48), and Tompkins (SDs 51, 54, and 58). And the Chapter 16 Senate Plan divides

Ulster County amongfourdistricts (SDs 39, 42, 46, and 51). The Senate Alternative Revision

divides only Saratoga County among three districts.

15. Furthermore, the Chapter 16 Senate Plan creates seven pairs of districts in whichboth districts contain parts of the same two counties. By contrast, the Senate Alternative

Revision has only one pair of districts that contain parts of the same two counties: Bronx/New

York proposed SDs 31 and 32, which are designed to provide appropriate representation for

Latino communities. Moreover, the Bronx/New York county linequite unlike the county lines



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that are breached by the pairs of bi-county districts in the Chapter 16 Senate Planhas lost

almost all significance as a boundary between local government jurisdictions. Both counties are

within New York City, and accordingly are subject to the Citys uniform income and property

tax rates, have a single local legislature, are part of a single school system, and are subject to a

single police commissioner (unlike the county sheriff system that operates in most other, non-

New York City, counties in the State).

16. Each of the above comparisons between the Chapter 16 Senate Plan and theSenate Alternative Revision understates the flaws of the former. To be sure, there are significant

potential trade-offs among the redistricting criteria: population equality, preservation of localgovernment units such as counties, and compactness. But the Senate Alternative Revision is

superior to the Chapter 16 Senate Plan on every one of these criteria. And if the Senate

Alternative Revision had the same population deviation as the Chapter 16 Senate Plan, it could

keep even more counties intact; if it divided more counties, it could achieve a higher degree of

compactness. Comparing the plans one criterion at a time makes the Chapter 16 Senate Plan

bad as it islook better than it is.

17. Taken as a whole, the Chapter 16 Senate Plans deficiencies (especially ascompared to the Senate Alternative Revision) lead to the unavoidable conclusion that the Senate

Majoritys decision to increase the Senate size to 63 was driven entirely by the wish to create an

additional upstate district that the Republicans expect to win.

18. As discussed above, the 26 New York City districts all are overpopulated, havingpopulations with an average deviation from the statewide mean of +3.57%. The Chapter 16

Senate Plans 28 districts north of New York Cityone more than in the 2002 62-seat Senate

planare underpopulated an average of -4.13% below the statewide mean, with 22 of the



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districts having populations more than 4.6%below the statewide mean. All 23 maximally

underpopulated districts (more than 4% below the mean) are entirely north or west of

Westchester, Putnam, and Dutchess Counties.

19. As is therefore apparent, the creation of an additional upstate district required theuse of two complementary devices: maximally underpopulating most of the upstate districts, and

enlarging the Senate to 63 districts, so that the extra district could be shoehorned into the upstate

region without pushing the total deviation (the range between the single most and least populous

districts) above 10%, which would render the plan presumptively violative of the 14 th

Amendment one person, one vote requirement.20. A 62-district Senate would not have served the Senate Majoritys partisan design.

If a total of 28 districts were to be created in the region north of New York City as part of a 62-

seat planas the Senate Majority requires to assure itself of its continued control of that body

then the number of New York City districts would have to be reduced to 25, from the 26 in the

63-district plan. The 25 New York City districts would then have had an average deviation from

the statewide mean of +6.00%, and the 28 districts to the north would have had an average

deviation of -5.65%. Allowing for the inevitable creation of some upstate districts that deviate

from the ideal population by more than the regional average, the total deviation of such a 62-

district plan would be more than 12%, and the plan would presumptively run afoul of the

equipopulousness requirements of the 14th Amendment.3 The only way to create the additional

3 If the total state population of 19,363,397 were divided among only 62 districts, thestatewide mean (the ideal district population) would be 312,313. Dividing the aggregatepopulation of the 26 New York City districts (8,276,194 the population of New York City, plusMount Vernon and Pelham) among only 25 districts would yield an average population of331,048 for the 25 districts, which is 18,735 6.00% above the 62-district ideal of 312,313.The 28 districts north of New York City have an aggregate population of 8,250,734, averaging294,669. That would be 17,644 5.65% below the 62-district ideal. The total deviation would



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upstate district, and to keep the total deviation below 10%, is to increase the Senate to 63

districts, while maximally underpopulating most of the upstate districts.

21. An increase to 64 districts would not have met the Senate Majoritys partisanaims, because it would not have permitted the creation of an additional upstate district (as

compared to the 63-district plan), and would have required the creation of an additional New

York City district, almost certainly to be represented by a Democrat. Increasing the size of the

Senate from 62 districts to 63 but not to 64 was precisely the change that served their partisan

calculation.

22.

Suppose that a 64-district Senate were apportioned as follows: 9 districts to LongIsland, as in the Chapter 16 Senate Plan; 26 to New York City (plus Mount Vernon and Pelham,

also as in the Chapter 16 Senate Plan); and 29 north of New York City, one more than in the 63-

seat Chapter 16 Senate Plan. The ideal district population for a 64-district Senate would be

302,553 (the state total of 19,363,397, divided by 64). The 26 New York City districts would

have an average population of 318,315 (as in Chapter 16s Senate Plan), and an average

deviation of 15,762, or +5.21%, above the ideal. The 9 Long Island districts would have an

average population of 315,163, as in the Chapter 16 Senate Plan, and an average deviation of

12,6104.17% above the ideal. But the 29 districts north of New York City would have an

average population of 284,508, and an average deviation of 18,045 below the ideal, or -5.96%.

The total deviation of such a plan would be at least 11.17%, and allowing for some population

difference among the upstate districts, likely would approach 12%a total deviation

presumptively in violation of one person, one vote.

thus be at least 11.65%, and allowing for some population differences among the upstatedistricts, it would almost certainly exceed 12%.



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23. As evidenced by the the 2001 Burgeson memorandum entitled Size of theSenate, which the Senate Majority attempts to dismiss, the Senate Majority in 2001 considered

going to 63 districts, and indeed searched far and wide for a partisan reason to add a 63 rd district

that year. This Burgeson memorandum is already in the record, and is attached again hereto as

Exhibit 3 for the Courts convenience. In the memorandum, Burgeson wrote that there had been

numerous discussions regarding the possibilty of going to 63, and that the ultimate decision

[would] be made withpoliticalnumbers for proposed districts at each size. Id. (emphasis

added). The only reason Burgeson could fathom to go to 63 was to strengthen the Long

Island delegation by combining politically undesirable areas in the extra district. Id. (emphasisin original). But Burgeson quickly jettisoned that idea because it would have required giving

Democrats an extra seat over the 62-seat plan of which the Senate Majority approved. This was

so because the upstate districts had already been draw[n] . . . light to avoid the migration of a

district downstate. Id. (emphasis in original). Going to 63 would, Burgeson determined,

exacerbate the situation, i.e., reduce the populations of the upstate districts to the point where

the total deviation would exceed 10%. Burgeson therefore concluded that there was no partisan

gain to be had by going to 63, and that the idea should be rejected. And it was.

24. Given that the Burgeson memorandum was written in July 2001, it is painfullyapparent that Mr. Carvins March 2002 memorandum explaining the Senate Majoritys decision

to use Method B was nothing but apost hoc attempt to rationalize the political decision the

Senate Majority had already made more than seven months earlier.

25. This year, in contrast to 2002, and as proven by the population figures citedthroughout this Affidavit, the Senate Majority determined that by maximally underpopulating

most of the upstate disticts, it could now add a 63rd district in the upstate region, where the



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Republicans expect to win, without crossing the 10% deviation threshold. In fact, it has been

widely reported that the Republicans have recruited a wealthy candidate who is prepared to self-

finance his run for that new, open seat. Attached hereto as Exhibits 4 and 5 are news articles

discussing the new seat and the likely candidate, Assemblyman John Amedore.

26. And again in 2012, as in 2002, Mr. Carvin belatedly produced a memorandumpurporting to explain the Senate Majoritys baldly political decision.

27. The timing of the Republicans announcement of their intention (via the 2012Carvin memorandum) to increase the size of the Senate to 63 also is telltale of their improper

political motives. Had the size of the Senate been changed by applying a settled legal doctrineto the new Census data, then the new Senate size computation could have been announced within

a week of the release of the data for New York State on March 25, 2011. Instead, the

Republicans did not announce their new Senate size calculation until January 2012after the

first round of scheduled public hearings had concluded. The relevant facts are:

a. The only data needed were the total state population, the countypopulation totals, and requiring a few minutes work with geographicinformation system (GIS) software the populations of the two parts ofBronx County respectively east and west of the Bronx River.

b. The need to reallocate prison populations, pursuant to Chap. 57 of theLaws of 2010, does not explain the delay, since the computation inCarvins January 5, 2012 memo is based on the unadjusted data. It wasalso demonstrated in written testimony submitted by me to LATFOR onSeptember 22, 2001 that the prisoner reallocation could not affect theSenate size computation. (Respondents Exhibit A at 16-17.)

c. As late as the October 27, 2011 public hearing, the LATFOR Co-Chair,Senator Michael F. Nozzolio stated that he had yet to see any formalanalysis, other than that provided by me on September 22, of thecomputation of the number of Senate districts under the formula in theNYS Constitution. (LATFOR October 27, 2011 Hearing Transcript,58:12-22, available at http://www.latfor.state.ny.us/hearings/



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docs/20111027trans.pdf(last accessed Apr. 4, 2012)). Although SenatorNozzolio speaks only of analyses that might be supplied by witnesses, it isevident from his statement that neither his staff nor outside counsel hadprovided him with a Senate size computation supposing, of course, thatSenator Nozzolio was not dissembling and hiding from the public the fact

that he had such a computation in hand.d. From this history, it is evident that Mr. Carvins new Senate size memo

was not completed until January 5, 2012, nor published until Jan. 6,because once again he had to wait for the Senate Majority to determinewhat number of districts they wished the NYS Constitution to require.

e. The prisoner reallocation may have entered into this, in that the SenateMajority could not determine what number of districts would serve theirpurposes until the adjusted redistricting database was completed inDecember 2011.

28. Taking all of these facts togetherthe timing of the announcement, themalapportionment of the Chapter 16 Senate Plan, and the 2002 precedent, among other factors

it is clear that the Senate Majority has gone to great lengths to do all that it can for itself in the

2012 redistricting plan. Plainly, it can do no better, given the nearly two-to-one Democratic

enrollment edge in the state as a whole.4 If district population deviations were not so skewed in

favor of upstate districts in the apportionment, but instead were used for the legitimate purpose

of limiting the division of counties, and if the Senate had not been increased to 63 districts, there

would be two districts fewer upstate, and one more in New York City, and that almost certainly

would translate into a partisan difference of some magnitudeenough to determine the Senate

majority.

4 According to the LATFOR database, there are 5,233,251 enrolled Democrats in NewYork State (49.46%), and 2,688,532 enrolled Republicans (25.41%) out of a total of 10,579,888registered voters in 2010.



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4/4/12 2:OP plans 63rd district - Times Union

Page ttp://www.timesunion.com/local/article/GOP-plans-63rd-district-2681707.php

GOP plans 63rd districtThe proposed Senate seat would include all or parts of fivecountiesBy JIMMY VIELKIND, Capitol bureauPublished 11:26 p.m., Monday, January 23, 2012

ALBANY The Capital Region's state Senate

delegation would increase to four as Republicans

carve out a 63rd district including Albany and

Schenectady counties, according to an official

briefed on draft maps set for release this week.

The new seat will include Montgomery County,

Rotterdam and a sliver of the Electric City before

stretching into Albany County and going south through Greene and Ulster counties to the city of

Kingston, the official told the Times Union.

Earlier this month, Republicans that control the Senate released an analysis of the state's

population and a constitutional formula they say necessitates the creation of the new district. The

official said lines for all Assembly and Senate districts could be released as early as Tuesday by

LATFOR, a task force controlled by the majority Senate Republicans and Democrats who dominate

the Assembly. Lines for congressional districts are expected in subsequent weeks.

Criticism from good-government groups has long put LATFOR's control of redistricting under a

cloud. They charge that legislators manipulate district boundaries to maximize the advantage of the

majority party, but this year, the cloud became a thunderstorm when Gov. Andrew Cuomo parrotedthe critique and vowed to veto "lines that are not drawn by an independent commission that

are partisan."

Indeed, Senate Democrats charged that GOP's decision to create a 63rd seat was simply another

page from the old playbook, and accused the Republicans of manipulating their math to justify their

political dreams. Mike Murphy, a spokesman for Senate Democrats, said Monday the Republicans

"are playing a dangerous game with the state Constitution."

Susan Lerner, executive director of the good-government group Common Cause said any new seat

created outside of New York City, where Democrats are concentrated, "systematically distorts the

regional balance of the state and constitutes an automatic gerrymander" given population growth

there compared to upstate areas. Legal challenges to LATFOR's work are expected over the coming

weeks and months; one is already pending in federal court in Brooklyn.

Cuomo, a Democrat, has not commented on adding a 63rd seat. Some government observers have

pointed out that it could prevent ties in the chamber resulting in government gridlock. The GOP



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now has a bare 32-seat majority.

Scott Reif, a spokesman for Senate Republicans, also declined to comment.

The official said the new district would encompass 293,000 residents and would have more

enrolled Democrats than Republicans. But two sources indicated to the Times Union that GOP

leaders see the district as an opportunity for a run by Assemblyman George Amedore, R-

Rotterdam, who might be able to use his personal wealth he owns a home construction company

to help finance a campaign.

"The Capital Region is growing, and if you look at where it's growing, it's along the whole Hudson

River, Hudson Valley corridor. I think it would be a great thing for the Capital Region I'd rather

see it locally than having it go out west," he told the Times Union. "It hasn't been presented to me ...

I'm anxious to see what my Assembly seat is going to look like, but would I be interested in thinking

about it and looking at it? I would be crazy not to."

Republican sources had whispered about a new seat being created in the area, and itsrepresentatives hinted at the change. Sen. Hugh Farley, a Niskayuna Republican who currently

represents all of Schenectady and Montgomery counties, said last week that, "I'll get a little more of

Saratoga [County], that's about it." Farley said, "As far as I know I intend to run."

That would likely squeeze Sen. Roy McDonald, who now represents Rensselaer and parts of

Saratoga County, east and south into Washington and Columbia counties. McDonald, a Republican,

lives in Saratoga.

"I'm from the Capital Region, and when I go home at night I think of myself as a Capital Region

senator," he said. "My hope is that my district is as close to the one as I had. Obviously I love

Rensselaer County, I was born and raised there, I love Saratoga, I live there, and I recognize

communities like Saratoga is exploding."

Sen. Neil Breslin would lose a broad swath of his Albany County district, but would keep the more

densely populated areas of Albany, Watervliet, Cohoes, Menands, Green Island, Colonie and

Bethlehem, where he lives. It's expected that district would shift east to include the City of

Rensselaer and, perhaps, parts of Troy. Reached for comment by the Times Union Monday night,

he expressed surprise.

"That I knew nothing about this is deplorable, and it's evidence that Republicans are doing what

they want without any thought to a governmental process to pick acceptable districts," he said.

James M. Odato contributed. Reach Vielkind at 454-5081 or [email protected].

The 63rd proposal



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A state official says the 63rd district map includes:

All of Montgomery County

Schenectady County: Towns of Duanesburg, Princetown, Rotterdam, small portion of

the City of Schenectady (about 1000 people).

Albany County: Towns of Guilderland, New Scotland, Coeymans, Westerlo,Rensselaerville, Knox, Berne

All of Greene County

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4/4/12 2:apitol Confidential Amedore forms Senate campaign committee

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Amedore forms Senate campaign committeePosted on February 9, 2012 at 5:29 pm by Jimmy Vielkind, Capitol bureau in George Amedore, Redistricting

Republican Assemblyman George Amedore has formed an

exploratory committee for a state Senate run, according to

papers filed with the State Board of Elections. (H/T City &

State)

Senate Republicans have drafted a 63rd Senate district

encompassing Amedores hometown of Rotterdam, which

sources said was designed to facilitate his run. Amedore

is a wealthy home builder who would be able to self-financehis campaign, to a degree. He said the committee would

allow him to raise other funds as he looks at a potential run.

Im just doing my due diligence and exploring the possibility,

if it becomes a real one, he said.

The 63rd district was included in a first draft of lines drawn

by LATFOR, a legislative task force controlled by Democrats

who dominate the Assembly and Republicans trying to hold

a bare majority in the Senate. Gov. Andrew Cuomo has

derided the first set of maps as hyperpolitical, and vowed to

veto them. Senate Democrats contain Republicans

improperly manipulated a constitutional formula to arrive at a

63rd seat, and have sued over its creation.

Amedore ruled out a primary against Sen. Hugh Farley, R-Niskayuna, who current represents Rotterdam in the Senate.

The draft lines of the new district would put Farleys residence in a district comprising Schenectady and parts of Saratoga

County.

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