Suffolk County politics: Oh, what a tangled web

Some political turbulence is simmering in Suffolk County. How it turns out could well decide which party holds power in county government for the next 10 years.

The gathering storm centers around the tedious, almost boring process of redrawing the boundaries of each district of the Suffolk County Legislature. It’s supposed to be done every 10 years to equalize district populations. But a closer look at the machinations of Suffolk’s power elite in this remapping go-round proves to be anything but boring.

Let’s start with the party that’s been in power on the Suffolk County level for a number of years — the Democratic Party — and how they are desperately trying to pick up and juggle the pieces after their loss in the election last month. There’s much to do in little time, as Republicans take majority control of the Suffolk County Legislature this Jan. 1 for the first time in years.

Enter the Suffolk County Democratic Party chairman, Richard Schaffer. Clever and efficient, he’s among the more industrious in his line of work, though saddled a bit with a cranky county executive he once sponsored. Schaffer thinks in the long-term, as befits an effective party boss. And to call the shots in redrawing all the new county legislative districts, a once-in-a-decade chance – is any party boss’s dream.

After dumping the legal rule for a bipartisan citizens commission to be appointed to play a central role, it looks like his dream is coming true, grabbing power from the jaws of defeat. And his role has been as hidden as a flea in a dog’s ear.

Schaffer is moving quickly, even as this column is being written. First, he started to cobble together the all-important redistricting map itself. This proposed map was supposed to come from a bipartisan, reapportionment commission made up of private citizens, retired judges, etc. That’s a Suffolk County Charter requirement that Suffolk has obeyed for decades for redistricting the legislature. Schaffer and the rest of his party operatives are having none of this. Besides, part of their gamble is that no one, not even Newsday, really cares.

So Schaffer huddled with the outgoing Democratic presiding officer of the legislature, who nurses ambitions to be Suffolk County executive when the incumbent steps down. No question the presiding officer would cooperate — and he surely is.

The presiding officer‘s staff got to work in earnest, with help from the Democrat politicos at Suffolk’s Board of Elections. Schaffer pressed all the right buttons. This was a huge opportunity – the chance to corner county government for his Democrats with a decade-long grip that could rival NYC and Albany. It brings to mind a quip from the the great entertainer, Groucho Marx: “The secret to success is honesty and fair dealing; if you can fake those, you’ve got it made.”

They knew that a credible reapportionment map had to give them long-term control – 10 years worth – without looking like it did. The presiding officer’s office burned the midnight oil to create a good-looking map on the surface — such as two districts with Latino/Black majorities, adding to the two already in existence, mindful that racial minorities make up 36% of Suffolk’s population, according to the most recent census data.

Their overall proposed map of 18 legislative districts would be sure to get the right “sound bites,” since it proposed nine largely Republican-registered voter districts, and nine largely Democratic ones. Who could ask for more? No one would really notice how the plan would pit no incumbent Democratic legislators against each other in the next legislative races in 2023, but squeezes four Republican legislators into two districts. To help achieve this, the redefined districts on the East End were off-balance population-wise. Oh, well.

Further to this ploy, the Democratic presiding officer sent a quiet reminder to the legislature’s Democratic and Republican leaders that the census figures from 2020 had come out. This triggered their charter obligation that the legislative majority and minority leaders had to nominate citizen members to a new reapportionment commission, who would in turn propose a map to the legislature. As if it meant anything.

Of course, the Democratic majority leader never replied and never nominated anyone to be on the commission, and has never said why (with a wink.) For his part, the Republican minority leader sent his commission nominations in late, explaining that the census bureau was late with final population figures, which was true.

Then Shaffer’s ever-compliant presiding officer, himself voted out of office as of Dec. 31, lamented in a Newsday letter-to-the-editor the other day that these two legislative leaders “killed the process” by missing the “deadline” to submit names —not mentioning that his party boss had been orchestrating a hidden remapping process of his own all along.

The presiding officer’s letter in Newsday made no mention as well that his Democratic majority leader-buddy was in the scam up to her ears. He wrote as well that he just didn’t like the Republicans’ citizen nominations for the commission anyway, “late” as they were, deciding on his own that a couple of them were simply “ineligible.” So what if little technicalities can kill citizen participation in redrawing districts. What’s wrong with that?

When the Schaffer/PO/Democratic Party map was ready, it was placed on the agenda for the legislature’s December meetings. (See prior story.)They have to move, as their majority control is to end in a couple of weeks. In picking and choosing what parts of the county charter they’ll follow, they scheduled a public hearing for their map. Public hearings always make things look good.

Understandably, all this put the Republican legislators a bit on edge. The Republican county chairman, Jesse Garcia, also skilled at political bobbing and weaving, huddled with his Republican legislators. Their first move: a lawsuit in State Supreme Court to stop the public hearing on the Schaffer reapportionment map. The court quickly ruled in the Republicans’ favor, banning the public hearing, dealing a crushing blow to the Democrats’scheme.

But wait!

Undaunted, Schaffer and company filed an appeal to reverse the GOP court victory. Just last week, the hearing on their bogus map, on the very day it was scheduled, was touch-and-go up to the last minute, with selected speakers and legislators literally waiting in the legislative auditorium in Hauppauge for the Appellate Division in Brooklyn to decide if the hearing was on. Alas! The Democrats won their appeal, the hearing was back on, and the map gambit regained momentum. Schaffer smiled like a proud father.

So a couple of dozen speakers, a few of whom objected to the absence of any citizen role in the map’s preparation, had their say, and the Democrats closed the hearing that few knew was happening anyway. They dispensed with the practice of holding a second hearing in Riverhead – no surprise. So this coming week, the county legislature will vote on approving the Schaffer map, and the Democratic legislators, in their last official meeting as the majority, will be sure to adopt it, and send it on to the county executive for signature.

This brings us to a few “what if’s” — starting with County Executive Steve Bellone, himself a Democrat, but no Schaffer fan. They have a way of getting on each other’s nerves. Owing to term-limit rules, however, Bellone’s current, last term ends in 2023. If the Schaffer map gets to his desk, would he dare throw a monkey wrench into the nimble acrobatics of his party, even if his veto of the map proposal would be what the law calls for? Not to worry – chances are this has all been worked out between Schaffer and Bellone, likely through intermediaries.

But what about those pesky legal issues? The Republicans already filed another lawsuit on the day of the on-again, off-again, on-again hearing, assailing in court papers their Democratic colleagues’ “flagrant effort to derail and sabotage the reapportionment process and to return it to the partisan gerrymandering mischief of a prior era.”

Interesting term, gerrymandering. We owe it to the antics of a politician who was Massachusetts governor, Elbridge Gerry, back in 1812. He proudly signed a bill that created an incredibly convoluted, distorted election district in Boston. It was compared to the shape of a mythological salamander. Gerry, always the eager political sneak, went on to be elected Vice President of the United States.

As for Gerry’s legacy, for generations, gerrymandering district maps across America became such a mess that public uproar led to reforms. Suffolk’s charter is an example of such reform, requiring the bipartisan reapportionment commission already discussed here. But we see that the current remapping of Suffolk’s Legislature’s districts has thus far cynically omitted that reform entirely.

And the power plays continue. How will the legislators vote on a party boss map with no citizen input? Will the county executive mosey along and sign off — or veto? How will he tap-dance in phrasing either his endorsement or veto message? What will become of the latest Republican lawsuit? If they win in court again, will appellate judges in Brooklyn once more turn everything upside down?

And if the reapportionment process is delayed till after Dec. 31, then the new Republican majority takes charge, and could adopt another map, maybe even, perish the thought, a lawful one. But their long-dreamed of majority will then be 11 to the 7 surviving Democrats. Bellone will still be county executive, and if he vetoes their map, legal or not, they wouldn’t have the 12 votes needed to override his veto.

One final point: if the county legislature fails to approve a valid reapportionment map, the county charter requires the county attorney to apply for a court-appointed receiver. The receiver would replace the role of citizens commission, and propose a map directly to the legislature to consider. Could this be what some Suffolk power players want in the first place?