Last year, former New York City mayor Ed Koch made a bunch of robo-call recordings to urge voters to support candidates that backed a nonpartisan legislative redistricting. Now, Koch has recorded another series of robo-calls — this time chastising politicians that didn’t follow through on their support of the plan. “My hope is that ultimately everybody gets behind this, out of integrity or shame,” he said Monday. “Either one’s O.K.” Governor Andrew Cuomo supports Koch’s plan, and has introduced legislation that would create an independent commission to redistrict the state. But right now, thanks to procedural difficulties, the bill is stuck in the State Senate and being held up by Republicans. Koch is meeting with Senate Republican leader Dean Skelos on Tuesday. “I will ask him, ‘Why the shenanigans?’” Koch said. “And if he says to me, ‘Honest to God, I’m going to do what I committed myself to do,’ I’m going to say, ‘You’re still a hero of reform, and you’re my hero.’”
Koch Plans to Make Redistricting Personal [City Room/NYT]
