Election Post-Mortem: New York Karma
by meep
While others are having the traditional post-election recriminations, I think there has not been enough of a look at how the Democrats screwed themselves over in New York because they wanted to make a “moral” gesture almost a decade ago.
Because of that, I will have a Republican representative in Congress next year.
Interlude: meep writes a letter
If it’s not clear, I’m a conservative Republican (it’s in my Twitter bio, well… “cranky conservative”), but my views on that score are not particularly unique. Therefore, I generally don’t write about political wrangling.
That said, I live in North Salem, NY, and I’m involved in our local politics, etc.
And I write letters. They have the sort of content you would expect:
4 Nov 2022 – Voting with regard to taxes
New Yorkers see some of the highest taxes in the U.S., and it will persist as long as we have people like Kathy Hochul as Governor.
The Tax Foundation ranks New York #49 in the State Business Tax Climate Index (https://taxfoundation.org/2022-state-business-tax-climate-index/) – only New Jersey is ranked lower. For state personal income taxes, only California has higher top marginal rates. This comes from years of a Democrat-dominated legislature and executive, and it will not turn around until we start voting these tax-and-spend Democrats out of office.
Vote for Lee Zeldin for Governor, Paul Rodriguez for Comptroller, Gina Arena for State Senator, and Gary Lipson for State Assembly!
- Mary Pat Campbell
Well, none of those folks won, alas.
Electoral realities of NY state
That was a heavy lift, given the electoral realities of NY state.
Yes, a lot of it was NYC, but not only. One of the Republican committee distributed a version of the following:
Claiming that if only he had taken Westchester, he could have won the whole thing…. true, but, this is the Westchester breakout:
That’s not really a fluke. There would need a 66K vote swing.
But check out the neighboring county:
Which partly explains this:
As the district is all of Putnam County, plus northern parts of Westchester, and parts of Rockland County.
You can see those vote totals — and without giving you a table of results, you can understand almost every single red county on the original map is teeny in population compared to those blue counties. Those red counties are pretty rural, being farms and mountains — it’s very pretty, but it’s one person, one vote; not one acre, one vote.
That said, how did the head of the DCCC get himself stuck to such a district?
How did that happen?
I talked and wrote about this earlier this year, when karma started to peek out its ugly little head.
It was an elegant little time bomb that the Democrats set on themselves, thinking it was a meaningless gesture when they originally set it back in 2014, other than to give them something to preen over.
Some people have been mis-explaining it after Lawler’s win especially. The guy Lawler won against, Sean Patrick Maloney, is my representative now —- the redistricting has some overlap, but there is not really a lot. I just happen to be in one of the spots where there is some. It’s a weird spot, filled with apple orchards, horse farms, and a lot of rich people’s estates.
Back on my birthday, I had a post explaining how process is important. I will do the nutshell version:
- In 2014, a state constitutional anti-gerrymandering amendment was passed, via legislature and ballot measure.
- An actual anti-gerrymandering group opposed it at the time, saying it was bullshit, and that there were many ways to dodge the provisions of the amendment.
- The NY Dems ignored the anti-gerrymandering provisions (as expected) and gerrymandered the hell out of the 2020-based redistricting.
- Republicans sued.
- Well, the NY Dems were a bit too dismissive of legit ways to dodge the anti-gerrymandering provisions, so that even Dem judges had to say “I say, dear chaps, that’s a bit too much.”
- The judge tried giving the NY Dems a chance for do-overs, the Dems tried to run out the clock, and the judge said “nuh-uh” and brought in an outside expert to set the districts. Which said expert did, and the districts are actually pretty fair.
- Scrambling ensued, with many Dems having to primary each other.
- There are lots more Repub Reps going to the House now, one of them being mine. Huzzah!
- And now there are no NY Maloneys (one bumped off in her primary election, the other, my ex-Rep, lost in General).
Now, I don’t know if NY Dems are going to try to redistrict for the 2024 elections (I assume they’ll try if they can), but perhaps it would be better for them not to poke the bear…. or maybe they can try to get that amendment repealed.
The thing is, without that anti-gerrymandering amendment, they could have had the most gerrymandered districts ever, and there would have been much fewer Republican House members coming from NY. They could have had that original map only if they hadn’t had that 2014 amendment.
There’s nothing inherently unconstitutional about gerrymandering. It looks bad, but when did that ever stop political machines in New York?
But no, New York Democrats had to preen morally or something back in 2014… I don’t know why. In New York, it would purely be for show. Given the uselessness of NY Republicans, I cannot imagine they were playing a long game, but who knows?
Don’t pass rules you don’t want to be enforced
I don’t know why this is difficult.
We all know politicians are hypocrites, but being a hypocrite doesn’t mean you have to be an idiot.
As I wrote in the April post, process is important, and passing “fake” rules can be very dangerous when, all of a sudden, you find out they’re not fake.
For the longest time, Democrats in NY have been used to doing whatever they wanted, as they pretty much own the entire power structure. That does make them lazy in some of their shenanigans, which makes them ripe for picking in many ways.
I’m not saying the FBI should investigate any particular politician, but I’m just saying that when one party ties everything up, the FBI should probably be investigating the top politicians for corruption. They tend to stop being careful about staying within the rules, and then you get a run like in Illinois or New Jersey.
Enjoy what you can.
While other Republicans (nationally) are unhappy, I’m fairly happy:
looks like my district may be booting DCCC leader Maloney
— Mary Pat Campbell (@meepbobeep) November 9, 2022
spike
I know not much will come of this, even if Republicans control both the House and Senate. Gridlock is the best I can hope, and having Lawler as my rep may not make much of a difference… but we shall see. It’s more of a basis for the future.
I know many people who read my blog are not politically aligned with me, which is just fine by me. I read lots of things by people who I don’t agree with politically. My advice for people unhappy with recent results is to get involved with local town political committees.
They always need people to get stuff done, not just people to give money (which I have limits on, due to my job.) I spent this morning picking up signs for disposal, for example.
These groups are usually looking for volunteers for specific tasks, and starting out with a small group is a great way to meet locals. I think starting out with local campaigns is the way to go, because you can really see where you make an impact. It may not sound glamorous, but it gets more done than you think.
So if you’re unhappy with what you saw on Election Day, why not get involved locally? It’s a great way to start and build up.
