Politics & Government

Gerrymandered Senator Says He'd Move to Stay in District

Eric Adams said he'd leave his Prospect Place home, rather than face off against Montgomery if redistricting plan goes through.

Prospect Heights Sen. Eric Adams has been gerrymandered out of his own district in the redistricting proposal state lawmakers released yesterday.

It’s unlikely this version will pass—Gov. Andrew Cuomo has already vowed to veto it—but if the final iteration still cuts Adams out of his home district, he said he’s move rather than contest Sen. Velmanette Montgomery for her Fort Greene/Bed-Stuy-based District 18.

“It’s really ridiculous. But if I need to move two-to-three blocks more into my district, I’ll move,” said Adams, who has lived in his apartment on Prospect Place between Grand and Classon for more than 20 years.

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The new map, drawn by Senate Republicans, contorts District 20's neat triangle to something more like an Atlantic Yards construction digger, or, as , a Harley-Davidson.

Besides gerrymandering Adams out, the new map gives over about half of Adam’s territory to Montgomery’s neighboring District 18, making up the population with a one-block-wide strip between Fourth and Fifth avenues all the way to Sunset Park, where a chunck of new territory is added (see current and proposed maps as PDFs in photo gallery).

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The maps were drawn by a task force made up of the majority parties: Republicans drew the new Senate lines and Democrats made changes in Assembly districts.

Redistricting takes place every 10 years to make allowances for population shifts. But it’s often used by the majority party for political ends.

“You have this elongated tail that’s 26 blocks long. That immediately raises the question of what community of interest is this serving? And the answer is none,” said Alex Camarda, director of public policy at the non-partisan Citizens Union.

Gerrymandering was used by assembly Democrats as well, pitting two sitting Republicans against each other in Oneida County, for example.

“This is an issue that breaks much more along majority/minority than along party lines,” Camarda said.

Over the past year, several redistricting reform bills have been proposed, but only one has passed. Proposed by Prospect Heights Sen. Hakeem Jeffries, the instead of where they are incarcerated.

Jeffries, who was , also blasted the new Senate maps, saying Republican lawmakers abused the process “to protect incumbents, punish the opposition and artificially maintain their power.” 

“The poisonous use of the gerrymander by the senate majority undermines the integrity of our democracy,” he said in a written statement.

In the new plan, Adams wasn't the only senator to face significant districting changes. State Sens. Marty Golden, R-Bay Ridge, and John Sampson, D-Canarsie, were given large swaths of disgraced former state Sen. Carl Kruger’s Marine Park base.

The state will host several public hearing on the new lines, but only one in Brooklyn, on Feb. 1 at 10:30 a.m. in Founders Hall Auditorium at St. Francis College, 180 Remsen St.  


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