LATFOR’s redistricting plan has been roundly criticized as a partisan product that again serves only to protect the interests of the legislative majorities.

The Senate’s map, which creates a 63rd seat in the Capital Region and pits six Democratic lawmakers against one another, is seen as particularly egregious. NYPIRG’s Bill Mahoney called the GOP proposal “clearly the most gerrymandered lines in recent New York history.”

But when I asked the Senate’s LATFOR co-chair Mike Nozzolio on CapTon last night whether the lines his majority had drawn were partisan in nature, he flatly responded: “No.”

“I believe it’s a process that has gone out and sought testimony from a broad variety of groups. There’s been much input into the plan. I believe the plan is a plan that’s legal, constitutional.”

He actually managed to say that with a straight face.

Nozzolio’s Assembly counterpart, Jack McEneny, took a different – and, in my opinion, more truthful approach, but also defended the process critics have lambasted as lacking independence and transparency.

When I asked McEneny if he, like Nozzolio, considers LATFOR’s plan nonpartisan, he said:

“No. I think it was done by people who are very much in politics and know exactly where they’re drawing the lines.”

But when I noted that McEneny, who has been an outspoken defender of LATFOR and critic of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s threat to veto anything put forward by lawmakers, probably doesn’t think a politically-controlled process is necessarily negative, he said: “To be knowledgable? No, I don’t think that’s a bad thing.”

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