KORMAN v. ERIE COUNTY EXECUTIVE JOEL A. GIAMBRA

JOHN T. ELFVIN, JUDGE

This case, wherein the named plaintiff — a resident of the County of Erie — had sued to remedy the underrepresentation of the residents of his Legislative District made evident by the 2000 national census, was removed to this Court from the Supreme Court of the State of New York for the Eighth Judicial District. Because one person-one vote is a bedrock Constitutional right of each and every citizen, the present geographic boundaries of the seventeen election districts comprising Erie County, the territory served by the Erie County Legislature, are askew and must be remedied.

What the undersigned is now putting in place by this Interim Order is a mechanism that rectifies this illegal and malodorous condition while not muddling the situation for those who currently hold elective legislative positions and for those who will — after this September's primary elections — be the competing candidates in this November's general election for becoming or continuing as the seventeen Legislators who will represent their respective districts through the calendar years 2002 and 2003.

Various redistricting plans have been presented to and considered by the undersigned who, very frankly and after much attention to competing suggestions and other considerations could — i.e., is ready to — proclaim a constitutional plan here and now. And there has been and is and will be nothing to prevent the Legislature — with or without the acquiescence of the Erie County Executive — for adopting and putting in place its own plan that conforms to all constitutional requirements.

The undersigned is holding back his own presently-contemplated redistricting plan because such plan — and any other — would impose the legal boundaries for each of the seventeen Legislative Districts and such imposition would be effective at once. It would, without doubt, be disastrous to those who are now engaged in the processes of endeavoring to become or to continue as Legislators in, for and of the County of Erie. Some incumbents would undoubtedly be disempowered and some aspirants to election or re-election would be thwarted because an Erie County Legislator and any who aspires to become such must reside in the Legislative District which he or she represents or seeks to represent. If such a malodorous situation can be avoided, it should be.

It can be.

Despite the undersigned's scoffing and openly sneering reaction when a plan of weighted voting was first proposed by the Erie County Attorney's office on the morning of July 20th and his lack of any approbative or ameliorating comment when such was more seriously and thoroughly advanced by certain Erie County Legislators during that same session of court, on reflection such provides a perfect interim answer. Each of the sitting Legislators will, upon the filing of this Order, have a vote in and on all the matters to come before the Erie County Legislature that reflects the voting power of the residents of the Legislative District which he or she represents. If his or her District was found in and by the 2000 census to contain fewer than the average of the seventeen Districts — 55,898 — his or her voting power as to any matter coming before the Legislature for a vote will be proportionately diminished. On the other hand, if his or her District contains more residents than such average, his or her voting power will be enlarged proportionately. In this day of computers and other electronic assistance, it would be an insignificant problem for the Clerk of the Legislature to know and be able to report to all what had been the Legislators' vote. This would be true even if the determination were carried out — as the undersigned did — to eleven decimal places. Such degree of exactitude is not required. It suffices, in the undersigned's consideration and determination, to carry the allotments to three decimal points. Such weighting shall be as follows and such shall obtain until a redistricting plan shall legally be put in place by the Erie County Legislature and the Erie County Executive — or by the Erie County Legislature's overriding of the Erie County Executive's veto — or by the undersigned.

LEGISLATIVE DISTRICT POPULATION % 2000 WEIGHTED VOTE CENSUS

1 56,885 1.018 2 51,060 0.913 3 44,334 0.793 4 55,033 0.985 5 49,634 0.888 6 53,589 0.959 7 53,735 0.961 8 52,792 0.944 9 57,224 1.024 10 58,223 1.042 11 53,341 0.954 12 61,174 1.094 13 61,227 1.095 14 58,803 1.052 15 51,975 0.930 16 64,611 1.156 17 66,625 1.192

TOTALS 950,265 17.000