Michael Johnson

Right now, a state supreme court is hearing the case of Little vs. LATFOR. It is the Senate Republicans case challenging the law implemented in 2010 by the then-Democratic lead Senate in which prisoners would be counted at their last known address instead of where they are being incarcerated.

While the two sides were making their case inside the courtroom, spokesman for both Senate Democrats and Senate Republicans took the airwaves to talk with Susan Arbetter on WCNY’s Capitol Pressroom. Queens Democrat Mike Gianaris, who has long been an advocate for redistricting reform, was interviewed first, followed by former Senate Republican Communications Director John McArdle (who stood in because Senate Republicans cannot talk about this because they are plaintiffs in the case).

Gianaris, as he has been arguing for months, that Republicans are trying to delay implementing the law on counting the prison population in an attempt to “run out the clock” so they can claim there isn’t enough time do so for the 2012 reapportionment. He says the law is on the books and that LATFOR, the committee charged with redrawing the lines, should adhere to the law.

But McArdle says Republicans aren’t stalling, and they have serious concerns about whether the law is constitutional. One is that prisoners will only be counted in their home districts when redrawing state legislative lines, and not when they draw Congressional lines. He also suggested that there are difficulties in figuring out where a prisoner’s address was prior to incarceration. And he argued that the state of Delaware ran into difficulties trying to implement a similar bill.
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