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During a meeting on Tuesday, the Onondaga County Legislature approved a redistricting plan that would give power to a Republican-led panel. The vote was along party lines, with all Republicans voting in favor of the panel and all Democrats against. 

Democrats from around the county said the resolution goes against the pledges all six Democrats and 9 of the 11 Republicans made in 2019 and 2020 to create a nonpartisan redistricting process. The vote started the process to create new legislative district maps for the 2023 election. 

“This is the opposite of good government,” said Joe Driscoll, a Syracuse Common Councilor and the chair of the Democratic Party’s effort to flip the county legislature. “(Republicans) are not including anybody else in the conversation, just rolling it out and saying, ‘This is how it’s going to go.’”

The redistricting plan created a six member panel that will draw new legislative district boundaries. The legislature must approve the panel’s proposal for the map to be implemented.

Starting the process now ensures that Republicans will control four of the six seats, said Dustin Czarny, a county elections commissioner, Democrat and automatic appointee to the commission.

“The current last-minute push that seems to be happening now is meant to get this done before the end of the year. So, if the Democrats take control of the legislature, the Republicans can saddle them with partisan maps,” Czarny said. “They seem to be acting like what we’ve seen with the national Republican Party, using redistricting as a tool to empower minority rule.”

Legislator Chris Ryan, a Democrat, proposed an alternative redistricting plan in July, but it was voted down along party lines, 6-11. The plan would’ve implemented a 17-member nonpartisan commission of citizens not associated with politicians. The city of Syracuse passed a similar independent redistricting system in 2019. The process of redrawing Common Council maps began in January.

Democrats called the current maps — which were drawn in 2011 by a Republican-led group — gerrymandered. Peggy Chase, a representative of Syracuse’s 9th district, said her own district was gerrymandered to favor Republicans in 2011.

“Part of my district looks like a finger into the Sedgwick (Drive) area. Now, the Sedgwick area was carved out for the person at the time because it was Republican,” Chase said. “It’s like the representatives pick who they want to represent, rather than the people picking who they want to represent them.”

Chase, who represents parts of Syracuse University’s campus, noted that Syracuse’s Northside neighborhood is split among five different legislators, including her.

“Northside is a nightmare the way it’s carved up,” Chase said. “Now, the reasonable thing would be that a person that looks like and understands Northside would represent them. That’s how good redistricting would go, that they would be together and be represented by somebody who was among them.”

That fracturing of Northside has made it very difficult for residents there to get proper representation and help with community issues, she said. Two of the five legislators in Northside represent mostly suburban districts and are less inclined to spend effort on that part of their constituency, Chase said.

“With the county maps, if you were to teach a class on gerrymandering, this would be a good case study,” Driscoll said. “Some of the districts look like lobsters, these weird animals made out of the district maps to ensure (Republicans) have the best shot at maintaining control.”

Registered Democrats outnumber Republicans in the county by 33,000 as of September, and data from the 2020 census may have encouraged Republicans to change the maps now instead of in 2022, Czarny said. Voters who are not aligned with a party nearly outnumber Republicans in the county, as well.

“This is the suburban shift that we saw under Trump, where the suburbs that used to be bright red have now turned purple, if not blue, as voters reject the national (Republican) Party,” Czarny said.

Maya Goosmann | Digital Design Director

The redistricting panel will have six members: three Republicans, two Democrats and one independent:

• Legislature Chairman David Knapp, a Republican
• County elections commissioner Michele Sardo, a Republican
• Lawyer Kevin Hulslander, a Republican, appointed by County Executive Ryan McMahon
• County elections commissioner Dustin Czarny, a Democrat
• SUNY-ESF Associate Professor Sharon Moran, a Democrat, appointed by legislature minority leader Linda Ervin
• Bar owner Joseph Rainone III, an independent, appointed by legislature majority leader Brian May

The group’s first meeting is Wednesday.

Published on October 10, 2021 at 10:44 pm

Contact Nick: nickrobertson@dailyorange.com | @NickRobertsonSU