Republican legislators had at least part of a good idea when they recently proposed a referendum this fall to replace a county assessor picked by the county executive with one chosen by voters.
No, the good idea was not the part that would make the county assessor an elected official. That, as we have said, is a terrible idea seemingly intended by Republican county legislators to retain a dysfunctional property assessment system in which half the property owners underpay their taxes and half overpay their taxes.
We mean the good part about holding a county referendum this fall, one that would give all voters an equal say in how we choose our county legislators.
Instead of a referendum on the county assessor, how about a referendum on an independent redistricting commission to determine the boundaries of county legislative districts after the 2020 census?
Yes, we know the bad name that referendums have gotten since the British people voted to leave the European Union.
But consider the alternative for Nassau County.
In 2011, Republicans used a narrow 10-9 vote in the county Legislature to approve a redistricting map that would have squeezed four Democratic incumbents into two districts.
After a court challenge and a failed effort to draw a fair map by an independent advisory commission with 10 members split evenly between Republicans and Democrats, the GOP majority in the county Legislature approved a revised map.
It had 12 GOP majority districts and seven districts in which Democratic voters are the majority – in a county in which Democratic voters outnumber Republican voters. That margin currently stands at nearly 70,000 voters.
Little or no effort was made by Republicans to follow the contours of communities. Roslyn, for instance, was divided into four districts, one of which includes Nicolello and another that stretches all the way to Hicksville.
This is known as gerrymandering, a practice used by both parties across the county that have come under increasing criticism for thwarting the will of voters and pushing elective officials to political extremes. In other words, rigging the system.
Gerrymandering is the main reason why Republicans have controlled the Nassau County Legislature since the beginning of the decade and, short of an election earthquake in 2020, will be the reason they control the Legislature in the next decade — despite the growing advantage Democratic voters now have over Republicans.
And if an undemocratic system was not bad enough, consider the results for the county.
Former Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano, a Republican, was recently convicted of political corruption during a period in which the GOP legislators did little or nothing to oversee an administration marked by greed and incompetence.
Rob Walker, Mangano’s deputy, currently faces a trial on separate political corruption charges.
Former state Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, a Rockville Centre Republican, was convicted not once but twice of political corruption, in part, for his efforts to get a county contract for a company for which his son worked.
The finances of the county, one of the wealthiest in New York, remained under state supervision as the Legislature and Mangano struggled to balance Nassau’s budget year after year.
Hundreds of contractors were allowed to skirt oversight for many years with a ridiculously high threshold on contracts of $25,000 for which Legislature review was required.
And then there was the assessment mess in which county property was not assessed for eight years and an uncertified assessor was allowed to oversee the system.
Laura Curran, a Democrat, rode this mess to a victory in the race for county executive in 2018 and appointed a certified county assessor.
But thanks, at least in part to the gerrymandering that took place in 2013, Republicans were able to maintain an 11-8 advantage in the county Legislature.
Unsurprisingly, Nassau County’s presiding officer, Republican Richard Nicolello, sees nothing wrong with the current system.
That is the one in which Nassau’s map was drawn up by Mangano’s county attorney, John Ciampoli, an expert in state Republican election and districting issues and an associate of Skelos.
In an interview in February with Blank Slate Media, Nicolello said he prefers this system to a redistricting commission in which Gov. Andrew Cuomo could pick someone like Kevin Law, president and CEO of the Long Island Association.
We understand Nicolello’s concern. If Law or any independent redistricting commission merely followed a rational system that kept communities together, he would probably no longer be the presiding officer.
But do we really want to leave the redistricting of legislative districts to those who have a vested interest?
The state of New York has already said no.
In 2012, the state Legislature approved a constitutional amendment to establish new redistricting procedures for congressional and state legislative districts. It was approved by Republicans and Democrats.
As required by the state Constitution, the Legislature voted on the amendment for a second time the next year. They again approved the measure. And in 2014, the amendment went to state voters in a referendum.
Voters also approved the measure and beginning in 2020 New York’s congressional and state legislative districts will be drawn by a 10-member commission.
It is time to give Nassau voters the same chance to end rigged legislative districts and let honesty, competence and integrity be the reason people get elected to the county Legislature.
