In 2014, the State of New York approved an amendment to the State Constitution which changed to Sections 4 and 5 and added a new Section 5-b to Article III of the New York State Constitution, creating the Commission and setting forth its composition and overall mission. This amendment created an Independent Redistricting Commission which would be responsible for redrawing district lines for federal and state districts based on the results of the US Census that is completed every 10 years.

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This amendment was created and implemented to prevent gerrymandering which is "the practice of dividing or arranging a territorial unit into election districts in a way that gives one political party an unfair advantage in elections", according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary. The flaw in this process is that the state legislature has the ability to overrule or "veto" the proposal of the Commission and essentially draw their own lines. That is what happened in the 2022 redistricting process; the State Legislature which is more than 60% majority towards one party, overruled the Commission and drew their own lines; all of which have since been appealed and thrown out by the New York State Supreme Court as illegally gerrymandered.

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This has created chaos state-wide as the populace is confused as to who their representatives are and what districts they are in. This is a disgrace to our political process and has shown how political imbalance can jeopardize our democracy. I would propose amending the above amended Amendment to the New York State Constitution to prevent this kind of illegal political tampering to happen again. In my amendment I would allow our Independent Redistricting Commission the ability to act freely and independent from political party pressure to create fair district lines that, for the most part will keep the majority of counties in the same districts; where that is not possible the Commission will attempt to keep townships in the same district; where that is not possible the Commission will attempt to keep cities, villages and, or hamlets in the same districts. Where all of that fails, the Commission will be required to use physical boundaries, such as rivers or state parks / forests, or mountain / named hill ranges as the boundary lines. The Commission will present the redistricting proposal to the State Assembly who can only overturn the proposal with a "super-majority" or, as defined my Merriam-Webster as "a majority (such as two-thirds or three-fifths) that is greater than a simple majority" would ne required to overrule the proposal. Once the house passes the proposal it would go to the State Senate who again must have a "supermajority" vote in order to overrule the Commission. Finally, the proposal would go to the Governor for signature; the only way the Governor would be able to overrule the proposal is with injunction from the State Supreme Court.

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We cannot allow political parties to determine our voting capability within New York any longer. The 2022 process has made a mockery of democracy and has made New York State look ridiculous to the rest of the nation and world. Those responsible for this treachery should be held accountable and removed from office and the same punishment should be held for anyone who attempts to overthrown democracy in the future.