The Republican Party has begun targeting three strongly Democratic states with fake letters purporting to be official Census documents. The letters seem designed to create confusion, which could cost Democrats congressional seats and electoral votes in all three states:

It's arriving this week in mailboxes in Minnesota, New York and Washington state. At first glance, it might appear to be related to the upcoming once-a-decade count of every man, woman and child in the United States.

It's not. It's a Republican fundraiser and opinion poll.

And it has some local Democrats crying foul. They're calling for a federal investigation.

"This is as egregious as it gets," said Luz Maria Frias, director of St. Paul's Department of Human Rights and Equal Economic Opportunity and the city's point person for raising awareness of the federal 2010 U.S. census.

The letters are likely to heighten confusion and even suspicion when residents receive legitimate Census questionnaires later this year. This, in turn, could decrease overall Census participation in these three states, all of which could be considered “on the bubble” to gain or lose additional congressional seats after reapportionment.

Local officials in these states are right to demand an investigation. Even if the Republican scheme fails to reduce these states’ congressional clout and electoral votes, any reduction in Census participation could cost local taxpayers millions of dollars in federal money.

The fireworks were on full display last week in former State Senate Republican leader Joseph Bruno’s federal corruption trial, as a former Republican staffer explained how he helped his bosses stay on the wrong side of the law:

Prosecutors put into evidence an official Senate memo, written by government attorneys, strongly counseling the pols - in bold-faced, underlined type - to hand-deliver financial disclosure forms to the Legislative Ethics Committee.

Queried as to why he would give such odd advice, former Senate lawyer and Bruno aide Kenneth Riddett testified, and we quote: "There were, quite frankly, concerns with federal mail fraud statutes, to be honest with you."

In other words, Riddett simply assumed those forms were riddled with lies that wouldn't stand up to scrutiny from a U.S. attorney.

A shocking admission – one we had to read twice just to wrap our heads around. Still, given the multi-million dollar patronage machine uncovered when the Republicans lost control of the New York Senate, maybe we shouldn’t be surprised by a taxpayer-funded lawyer writing a how-to guide for Republican legislators trying to avoiding mail fraud charges.

Mail fraud, incidentally, is one of the charges Bruno was indicted on. So even with a legislative staff attorney telling him how to break the law and get away with it, Bruno still got caught.

New York Republicans’ downward spiral in the state legislature continued late last week as one of their last Long Island Assemblymembers switched parties to join the Independence Party:

Longtime Republican Assemb. Fred Thiele is switching parties to join the Independence Party, saying the 40-member GOP minority "stands for nothing" and "no longer speaks to pocketbook issues."

The 14-year Albany veteran said he hand-delivered papers to switch at the Suffolk Board of Elections Thursday and will seek to sit with the Assembly's Democratic majority[.]

Thiele, 56, of Sag Harbor, would join the Assembly's only other Independence Party member, Timothy Gordon from Albany, who has run with Democratic backing. If the Democrats accept Thiele, he will become the 110th member of the majority conference.

Thiele, who represents the Suffolk County-based 2nd Assembly district, specifically cited his Republican colleagues’ refusal to offer any amendments when the legislature was writing the state budget. Thiele believes they refused to participate out of fear that Democrats might actually accept some of the Republican amendments, making it harder to run against the budget in November.

The switch leaves the State Assembly with 107 Democrats, 40 Republicans, and three independents caucusing with the Democrats (two from the Independence Party and one from the Working Families Party).

After their failed coup attempt brought New York’s legislature to a standstill, it’s no surprise that State Senate Republicans aren’t exactly beloved by New York voters. Apparently, their desperate flailing has earned them a rebuke from donors as well, with Democrats out-raising Senate Republicans by nearly 3-1:

While Senate Democrats raised $6.9 million, Republicans raised just $2.5 million. That $4.4 million gap is the second-largest between the two parties since 1999, when the State Board of Elections introduced electronic filing.

The Democrats’ haul was more than twice what they raised during the first half of 2007, the last year without statewide elections. The Republicans’ total was just half of what they raised during the same period in 2007.

The big difference between the parties could hamper Republicans’ plans for retaking control of the Senate next year and underscores how much power is wielded by the dominant party in Albany, even though the Senate Democrats hold a majority of just two votes.

These early numbers are a sharp reversal from previous cycles, when Republicans routinely held a dominant fund-raising edge over then-minority Democrats. Without the millions of dollars that kept them in power for decades in such a left-leaning state, Republicans will have a tough time preventing more Democratic gains – let alone retaking the chamber – in 2010.

The New York State Senate has been in the news lately after Republicans attempted to seize control of the chamber in mid-session. We still don’t know how that struggle will play out, but a demographics expert at Queens College has studied long-term trends and come to an inescapable conclusion: no Republican majority is likely to survive 2010 redistricting.

“There is a very large population growth downstate in New York City and Westchester and a very large decline upstate,” said Andrew A. Beveridge, a demographer at Queens College, who conducted the analysis for The New York Times. “Basically, this is a rerun of 2000.”

(…)After the 2000 census, the Republican majority was able to minimize the impact of population losses in its upstate base in two ways, both of which survived legal challenges.

Generally, districts’ populations are not supposed to deviate by more than 10 percent. Inventive Republican mapmakers maintained their party’s edge in the 2002 election because when they redrew the district lines, they placed all the underpopulated districts upstate and most of the overpopulated ones in the heavily Democratic New York City metropolitan area. So they were able to cram more sparsely populated districts upstate.

In other words, faced with huge demographic shifts that favored Democrats, Republicans stretched their Senate gerrymander as far as they could in 2000 – and Democrats still took control by 2008. Ten years later, the very same demographic shifts still favor Democrats, but Republicans have run out of options for protecting their seats. Even if they regain control of the Senate, there simply isn’t a map that would keep them in power.

And with New York State investing millions of dollars to ensure an accurate Census count in the state (unlike in 2000, when urban centers like New York City suffered from chronic undercounting), it will be even more difficult for Republicans to cram Democratic voters into urban districts.

Yesterday, New York's Democratically-controlled legislature overwhelmingly passed SB 5661, which simplifies the process for consolidating local governments. The move is an effort to reduce New York’s highest-in-the-nation property tax burden by eliminating a shadowy patchwork of local bureaucracies. The New York Times explains the extent of the problem:

All told, there are more than 10,000 taxing entities in the state, ranging from special districts that provide volunteer fire departments to those responsible for disposing of duck waste or maintaining fallout shelters. Special districts are especially plentiful on Long Island, where they generate half the special district tax revenue in the state. Many districts are considered by critics to be little more than patronage mills.

Republicans allowed the problem to fester for decades until they lost control of the governorship in 2006 and the State Senate last year. Democrats, in contrast, made consolidation a priority –- and with good reason:

Proponents of consolidation say that those many layers of government are a major reason New Yorkers have the highest local tax burden in the country, helping drive people and businesses out of the state in recent decades. Mr. Spitzer’s commission estimated that taxpayers could save $1 billion a year with changes like consolidating local tax collection and creating a single, state-run jail system.

Once Gov. Patterson signs the bill, which he said he will, consolidation ballot initiatives will only require signatures of 10 percent of registered voters in an effected jurisdiction, or they can be placed on the ballot by county governments. Under existing rules, reformers face a much higher signature-gathering requirement, and in a throwback to 18th century politics, only land-owners can sign consolidation petitions.

A series of independent polls this month have shown Democrats with wide, double-digit leads on the generic ballot question of which party New Yorkers want to control the State Senate.

The latest numbers come from Siena College, which shows State Senate Democrats strongly favored (PDF) among New York registered voters, 57%-31%.
(May 18-21; N=622; MOE=3.9%)

These results largely confirm a Quinnipiac poll from two weeks ago, which gave the Democrats a 21-point lead on the question, 56%-35%, among registered voters.
(May 5-11; N=2828; MOE=1.8%)

Wading into the cross-tabs of the Quinnipiac poll, (which I feel comfortable doing because of the large sample size) we see that Democrats led the generic ballot in every region of the state, including traditional Republican strongholds in rural areas upstate.

12. Democrats took control of the state senate this year for the first time in decades. Would you like to see them continue control in 2010?

.......UpState Urban...UpState Other...UpState Total...NYC......Suburbs

Yes...........52%...............47%...............48%........71%........47%
No............35%...............41%...............40%........21%........45%
DK/NA.......13%...............12%...............12%..........7%.........7%

Ultimately, the only poll that matters is the 2010 elections, but these results indicate that despite the state’s tough budget choices in response to the recession, New Yorkers appreciate the important progress Democrats are making on key issues like improving transparency, shutting down the Senate Republicans’ taxpayer-funded political machine, and securing New York’s fair share of federal tax dollars. There’s a lot of work to do before 2010, but polling like this puts Democrats in an enviable position as we approach the campaigns.

When Democrats won control of the New York Senate, they promised to restore accountability and bring the legislature into the 21st century. Yesterday, they took an important first step in fulfilling that promise by releasing an impressive new website.

Sen. Majority Leader Malcolm Smith introduced the site from his office in New York City:

The Senate's first chief of information officer, Andrew Hoppin, a former NASA "guru," as Mr. Smith described him, and his team of tech whizzes have been working on the Web site since January. They have also been training senators and their staff members on blogging, Twittering and how to gather feedback from the site for their decision-making processes, according to Mr. Hoppin. Nine Senators are Twittering so far, including Mr. Smith.

The site allows constituents to search for legislation by subject area, watch video from lawmakers, and comment on the bills scheduled to be discussed in public hearings. Hoppin and the senators have also introduced an initiative to translate bill text and legal jargon into plain language.

Every ten years, the constitutionally-mandated U.S. Census is taken with the goal of counting every individual living in the United States – a goal complicated by the increasing difficulty of counting some minorities, immigrants, and other groups. This presents a challenge to states with large, urban centers like New York because Census results determine the size of states’ congressional delegations and the levels of federal funding states receive for other programs.

On April 3rd, the Democratic-controlled New York Legislature passed a state budget that provides $2 million in state funding to ensure the accuracy of the U.S. Census.

It’s unusual to see state governments subsidize exclusively federal government functions, but with the stakes so high, Democrats argue that state Census funding will pay off for New York:

Lawmakers who represent districts with a significant number of minority voters or immigrants say they've long known worried about the Census, contending their communities have been undercounted.

Sen. Bill Perkins, a Harlem Democrat who has not only African-Americans but West Africans, Haitian and Mexicans in his district, said he believes past censuses may have undercounted as many as 40 percent of the people in his neighborhoods. Indeed, Democrats and minority lawmakers claimed the Bush Administration fostered such undercounts.

Jeffrey Wice, a special counsel to Senate Democrats and veteran of several redistricting fights, said the state may have been undercounted by up to 250,000 people in the past two censuses.

The state money will be used primarily for outreach campaigns encouraging traditionally undercounted New Yorkers to participate in the Census.

In New York, for years, a division of the state Senate Research Service was responsible for creating a daily "Digest of Newspaper Clippings."

Because Republicans controlled the chamber, these jobs were filled by patronage and the clips were only sent to political allies. The program cost the state about $1.92 million and most people -- even those inside the legislature -- never knew that it existed.

Now Democrats are taking a stand to eliminate the patronage jobs and update the information distribution process:

The Research Service was targeted by Democrats not long after they took power for the first time in four decades in January, with a newly-elected 32-30 seat majority. Tuesday marked the Research Service's last full day of operation, which included the clipping service as well as a core of writers and researchers who toiled in a leased office just up the street from the state Capitol.

The thing to note here is that, instead of filling the positions with loyal Democrats, the new leadership is actually updating the process to take advantage of new technology and offering the content to everyone, regardless of party affiliation:

Democrats' newly-hired Chief Information Officer Andrew Hoppin will oversee an electronic version of the service, in which a small crew will compile stories from newspapers Web sites as well as blogs and e-mail them to Senate members, both Republican and Democrat.

It's amazing how going from X-acto knives to the Internet can change things.