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Adrian Rodriguez discusses redistricting in Buffalo

If you walk down Prospect Avenue between Pennsylvania Street and Porter Avenue, you might not notice much difference between the east and west sides of the street. Both are part of the lower West Side, both are populated by mostly lower-income Hispanics whose salsa and raggaeton music pours from their cars and windows. The scent of arroz con pollo drifts from the Niagara Cafe and Spanish conversation carries on the breeze. Ask anyone on either side of the street and they’ll tell you where you are: el barrio. This is smack in the center of Buffalo’s fastest-growing community—the Hispanic community.

But there is a difference between the two sides of the street, one so subtle that it’s undetectable to human faculties. The east side of the street is in the Niagara Council District and the west side is in the Ellicott Council District. An invisible line is drawn through this neighborhood, splitting, and thus diluting, the community’s voting power.

This is the result of the age-old practice called redistricting. Every 10 years, directly following a national census, the invisible boundaries of electoral districts are shifted to reflect shifting populations and even out representation. In Buffalo, for instance, there are nine Council districts, each of which had just under 33,000 people at the time of the last redistricting in 2002, for a total population of approximately 295,000. It’s the simple idea of one person, one vote, and it goes back to the Baker v. Carr (1962) Supreme Court decision, which said that districts need to have equal numbers of people for voters to have equal influence.

It’s these imaginary lines, however, that have been frustrating Hispanic community leader Ralph Hernandez for nearly 30 years. He believes that Buffalo’s Hispanic community is purposely being divided to help keep incumbents in office. Hernandez, co-founder of Hispanics for Fair and Equitable Reapportionment (H-FERA) and the West District’s School Board Member, is fed up with what he considers his community’s under-representation. “We’ve got three representatives, but none of them are Hispanic, and I guess we’re supposed to be okay with that.” The traditional Hispanic community, which is primarily made up of Puerto Ricans, currently stretches across the Niagara, Ellicott and North districts.

Redistricting, which began as an essential administrative process, has turned into a powerful political tool. Redistricting to create electoral advantages is referred to as gerrymandering, a term that goes back to 1812, when Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry drew up a salamander-shaped electoral district to disadvantage his opponents in that year’s elections. An obvious example of gerrymandering locally is Louise Slaughter’s “earmuff” 28th Congressional District, which includes parts of Rochester, Niagara Falls and Buffalo, with a thin strip along Lake Ontario connecting the two areas that make up the bulk of the district. The district was created by Albany’s Senate Republicans to pit Slaughter against another Democratic incumbent, John LaFalce. In the end, LaFalce dropped out of the race, leaving the district to Slaughter. Gerrymandering is also partially responsible for the fact that only one percent of incumbents in the nation’s least efficient state government—New York’s Legislature—have lost reelection bids in the last 22 years.

“Unless you start to pay attention to this process—and this is the nucleus, the heart of politics right here—you could be disqualified for something as simple as not living in the district you’re running for [which happened to activist David Rivera when he gathered signatures in a Common Council bid],” says Hernandez. “If you don’t understand the concept of redistricting and how it applies to you, it’s something you wouldn’t even think of, because these are all imaginary lines.

“But they’re significant in the political process, because these folks,” Hernandez adds, stabbing his finger on Niagara Street on a map, “can’t vote for a candidate from here,” and his finger lands two blocks away on Fargo.

In 2002, during the last redistricting, H-FERA proposed a plan to the Common Council that would unite the Hispanic community into a single district, District 1. “We wanted to give the districts numerals, in order to get rid of the stigmas that come with neighborhood names. South Buffalo, you think of Irish. Masten, Fillmore and Ellicott, you’re probably dealing with blacks. In Lovejoy you’ve got the Polish.”

The recommended plan would have put nearly 11,000 Hispanics into a single district, giving them nearly 33 percent of the vote there. (“With 33 percent, we’re really a force that can influence the vote,” says Hernandez.) In today’s Council, Hispanics comprise 23 percent of the Niagara District (which is 60 percent white) and 17 percent of the Ellicott District (which is 60 percent black). Needless to say, the plan was rejected, most notably by Dominic Bonifacio, the incumbent in the Niagara District. “There’s not enough Latinos in any of the three districts to get them to even pay attention to what our needs are,” Hernandez says. It’s no coincidence that every Council district, save Fillmore, has elected a representative whose race reflects that of the majority population there.

The same is true for the 60th State Senate District, which divides the Hispanic population along Hampshire street, putting 14,000 in the 58th District and 12,000 in the 60th. The upshot of all of this is that the Hispanic vote is severly diluted, causing disillusionment and, finally, voter apathy. Some figures show that less than 10 percent of Buffalo’s Latino community vote.

“It has a lot to do with trust in the system,” says Adrian Rodriguez, president of the Hispanic Coalition of Western New York. “And trust in our elected officials. A lot of promises have been made to our community, and most of these promises have not been kept.”

Both Hernandez and Rodriguez agree that it takes a Latino to understand the special needs of the Latino community. And there are many special needs. Latinos also have the highest school dropout rates, the highest teen pregnancy rates and some of the biggest across-the-board health issues, thanks to asthma problems caused by Peace Bridge traffic.

They also readily point out that in Buffalo’s history, there have only been two Hispanics elected into office—Robert Quintana into the Common Council (who was involved in numerous scandals before being chased off the Council by his primary constituency) and Ralph Hernandez to the Board of Education. “We’re not saying we want to elect a Hispanic every time one comes out of the gate,” says Hernandez. “We just want to be able to elect a Hispanic of our choice, and right now we don’t have that.”

Hernandez and Rodriguez know their community is one in distress, but also that it is growing. And that’s critical to a city that is rapidly shrinking. Rodriguez predicts that Latinos could account for nearly a fifth of Buffalo’s population by 2010, when the next census takes place. “The last census reported 27,000 Hispanics—23,000 of those in the City of Buffalo, and 4,000 outside the city lines. The census counted only 84 percent of Hispanics in 2000. We estimate the Hispanic population to be around 45,000 right now. If the population of Buffalo declines to 250,000 people by 2010 [several estimates suggest that figure is accurate], and the Hispanic community continues to grow, I can tell you that Latinos will have about 21 percent of the total population.”

With a rapidly growing population, there are sure to be unmet needs. “I think we need dissemination of information for health purposes, dissemination on the education part, economic development and jobs,” Hernandez says. “It’s sad, but this community survives on grants. There’s no private sector money in the Latino community. Tops is the only major firm that we have in that area.” He refers to government supported non-profits, like Hispanics United of Buffalo and AIDS Community Services. “These are all agencies that get money from the federal and state government, that’s how they conduct business, with grants. If those grants are eliminated for whatever reason, everybody’s on unemployment again.”

Rodriguez cites the need for job creation, GED programs to encourage youth to pursue higher education and more home ownership programs. “51 percent of Hispanics do not graduate from high school,” Rodriguez says. “We all know that without a high school diploma you can’t get very far. You can’t even support a family working in McDonald’s or Burger King or whatever. So training is the key to making sure these kids get at least a GED and go onto college to get an education and a well-paying job.”

Hernandez and company have been successful with redistricting efforts in the past, uniting the Hispanic community under one Board of Education district —which he now represents—and blocking the Erie County Legislature’s attempt to divide the community into three districts in 2002, which required Supreme Court intervention).

With the next redistricting coming up in 2012, Hernandez sees next year’s Common Council election as critical for the Hispanic community. He’s considering a run for the Niagara District, within which he hopes to unite most of the Hispanic community. If elected, he’d take office for a four-year term beginning in January of 2008. That would give him a vital say in the upcoming redistricing process.

With increased invisibility for the Hispanic community, Hernandez plans to bring desperately needed economic development to the Niagara corridor that is central to Buffalo’s Hispanic population.

“Again, if you don’t have somebody at the table, if you don’t have someone in the Council advocating issues for you, it’s never going to happen,” he says. “They’re going to go about their business, they’re gonna put their plan together, cast their vote, and that’s the name of that tune. And we’ll just have to wait for the next 10 years.”