Dear Lucas,
During last year's elections, every Republican Senator promised to bring an end to partisan gerrymandering, signing on to former New York City Mayor Ed Koch's pledge for independent redistricting. Now, just months into the new year, they all broke their word, working behind closed doors to quietly kill the centerpiece of Governor Andrew Cuomo's agenda to clean up Albany: the Redistricting Reform Act of 2011.
Not since the first President Bush told us to read his lips have we seen a more dramatic turnaround on a campaign promise. The Senate GOP's blatant hypocrisy is a slap in the face to every New Yorker who cast his or her vote in support of reform.
No one is more deeply disappointed in the Republicans' about-face than former Mayor Ed Koch, who summed it up best when he said "politics sometimes causes people to give up their decency. It is simply an attempt to derail our entire effort."
That is why we need your help to break the logjam in Albany and prevent 32 Senate Republicans from reneging on their promise to 19 million New Yorkers.
As Blair Horner of the New York Public Interest Research Group put it, "it's the best prospect for reform . . . in New York History." Let's not let the chance slip away.
Please join us in this fight. Visit PassThePledge.com and sign the petition demanding that GOP Senators keep their promise and pass the pledge. There has never been a more important time to change the way business is done in Albany!
Sincerely,
Mike Gianaris
Chair
P.S. Check out our newest Pass the Pledge video featuring New Yorkers urging legislators to keep their reform promise, and today's editorial by the Daily News insisting Senate Republicans not be allowed to back out of their promise on redistricting reform.