Screening of "Gerrymandering: The Film"

Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries will join Susan Lerner of Common Cause NY and filmmaker Jeff Reichert at the screening of Mr. Reichert’s critically acclaimed, Tribeca Film festival documentary, Gerrymandering: The Film. Sponsored by Democracy for New York and the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Art (MoCADA), the assemblyman will speak briefly about his own experience with redistricting before the screening.

By law every ten years states must redraw federal and state district lines to reflect the newest census data. This controversial formula furnishes lawmakers with the power to “gerrymander,” or manipulate district lines to their political advantage. The process continues to be a point of contention, with several lawmakers and residents calling for a more fair and transparent redistricting process. Sharing these concerns, Jeffries sponsored legislation that would allow an independent panel to draw the new district boundaries in New York by the end of this year.

Jeffries was also the lead sponsor of legislation signed into law last year requiring New York State to count prisoners in their home communities rather than in the districts where they are incarcerated. Known as inmate-based gerrymandering, the current method of counting prisoners distorts New York’s system of legislative representation by artificially inflating the political power of rural, upstate counties while hurting urban neighborhoods like those in central Brooklyn.

A featured subject in the film, Jeffries was a victim of gerrymandering. In 2000, the assemblyman challenged the 57thdistrict incumbent and received more than 40 percent of the vote. Two years later when the state redrew district lines, Jeffries discovered that he had been pushed out of the new 57th district. Jeffries eventually sold his apartment and moved his family two blocks back into the newly defined 57th district to win the assembly seat in the 2006 election.