Experts predict that by 2013, when State Senate districts are redrawn after the 2010 census, Democrats will finally see the gains in representation that they’ve been owed for years. Last time the districts were redrawn, Republicans led the governing body and managed to skew the process in their own favor — leaving most of the underpopulated districts upstate, while the growing populations in the New York City region went unrecognized by a matching increase in proportional representation. But according to the Times, no matter who is in charge, the population percentage changes are expected to be so great that Democrats are almost sure to get a handful of new seats in the Senate. Meanwhile, though he’s so far failed to get the body moving again (this weekend saw more lightning-fast, useless sessions), Governor Paterson’s team seems to have not given up on scheming. One of his closest allies, Charles O’Byrne, was spotted having lunch at L’Express on Park Avenue South (???) with GOP black-ops specialist Roger Stone. According to the Post, the pair spoke about how Paterson could withstand a possible primary challenge from Attorney General Andrew Cuomo next year. Stone is the man, you might recall, whose anti–Hillary Clinton campaign involved the selling of T-shirts with the motto “Citizens United Not Timid,” or C.U.N.T. for short. Though as a Republican Stone probably would rather have Paterson run for the Democrat side, we can’t help but wonder what clever acronym he’d come up with for Cuomo.
GOV AIDE MEETS WITH TOP GOP MUDSLINGER [NYP]
Democratic Lock Seen on 2013 Albany Senate [NYT]
