not thought either wise or just, where so many Senators are apportioned to a single county, to permit the average representation in the Senatorial districts to fall uniformly below the ratio. The inequality necessarily arising from the rule preserving county lines, would operate with great harshness upon those counties of the State which are too small to be entitled to a Senator, and which must be combined in the formation of Senatorial districts, if counties entitled to a large number of Senators were permitted to have a representation on less than the ratio. We have under our amendment proposed that New York shall have twelve Senators; Kings, seven Senators; Erie, three Senators, and Monroe, two Senators. These four counties have approximately one-half of all the Senators apportioned, and unless some such rule as that suggested by your committee is provided. in the Constitution, it may easily happen that the rest of the State will on the average have a smaller representation in the Senate than those four counties. Inasmuch, as every Senator from a county in a broad sense, represents the entire county, our proposed rule can never work any real injustice. The rule regarding county lines makes inequality as between the rural counties of the State and the city counties of the State inevitable to a certain degree, and we think that this inequality should not be increased as against the rural counties, and in favor of the counties of the State embracing the great cities which are incorporated entities, unified in interest, and with a small area of population. Third. As to the apportionment of members of the Assembly, your committee have recommended rules which will make this apportionment hereafter a matter of strict mathematical calculation, and which it is believed will approach more nearly to equality of representation than any other apportionment that has ever been made in this State. The principal difficulty in reaching absolute equality arises here also from regarding the county lines as controlling. But with 150 Members of Assembly, the ratio is 38,606, and the inequalities are not considerable, except in the few cases arising under that provision of the Constitution which provides that every county, no matter what its population, shall have a Member of Assembly. Your committee has not deemed it wise to attempt to change this rule, which has been so long established, but has attempted to formulate new rules by which the loss of representation occurring in those counties having one or more ratios must be equally borne by both the rural and city counties of the State. We have hereto annexed tabular statements showing the three classes into which the counties are divided for the purpose of an apportionment of Members of Assembly. From this it will appear that while the original ratio for each Member of Assembly is 38,606, the last or highest ratio in apportioning Members of Assembly in the ten largest counties of the State, is only 40,566. As appears by Assembly Exhibit 3, hereto attached, the average population in the Assembly districts having one or two Members of Assembly, by reason of having one or more full ratios, is 39,273. The same rules requiring equality in population among the districts in counties having more than one Member of Assembly, are applied by your committee to such Assembly districts as are applied as heretofore stated to the Senate districts. And it is specifically required that every Assembly district shall be wholly within some Assembly district. Having formulated the foregoing rules to insure equal representation in both Senate and Assembly districts, your committee have deemed it advisable to increase the number of Senators from thirty-five to fifty, and of Assemblymen from 128 to 150, in order to effectuate a more complete representation of the whole people of the State. The present number of each house of the Legislature was fixed by the Constitution of 1821, when the population of the State was 1,372,812. The total citizen population of the State is under the census of 1892, nearly five times greater, viz., 5,790,865. If Senators are to have any sense of locality, and to intelligently represent the interests of their several districts, it is of the greatest importance that the rural districts should be confined within reasonable territorial limits. Under the apportionment of 1892, the largest Senatorial district in population, as well as in territory, outside of the city of New York, is the Twenty-first, composed of the counties of Washington, Warren, Essex, Clinton, Franklin, Hamilton and Fulton, containing a citizen population of 229,905. This district is much larger in territory than the average Senatorial district of the State. When the Senatorial districts were but eight in number, the controlling reason for the change made by the Constitutional Convention of 1846, from eight Senatorial districts, each electing four Senators, to thirty-two Senatorial districts, each electing one Senator, was that the Senators from the eight large districts could have no close relation with all the people of their districts. Our proposed number of fifty Senators will substantially restore to the people approximately the same representation that they had under the Constitution of 1846, the additional eighteen Senators going to the great centers of population. The opportunity for any selfish or corrupt interest to obtain control over a body composed of fifty members, will, undoubtedly, be much less than to obtain control over a body of thirty-two members. As we propose, the most popular body, the Assembly, is increased to 150, which is three times as large as the Senate, thus preserving a fair proportion between the number of members of the two bodies. Your committee, believing that municipal elections should be separated from State or national elections, under the plan proposed by the Committee on Cities to this Convention, requiring the municipal elections to be held in the odd numbered years, and the State elections in the even numbered years, has also recommended, in order to bring this about, that the terms of Members of Assembly shall be extended to two years. It is necessary, if these elections are separated, that this extension should be made, or that biennial sessions should be provided for, and your committee has chosen the former method. For the purpose of securing obedience by the Legislature and by the local boards to the constitutional mandate, preventing gerrymandering, your committee have recommended that the action of these bodies should be reviewable by the courts, and that all actions and proceedings relating to apportionment should have a precedence over all other actions and proceedings on the calendars of the court. This is no innovation, for the courts of this State and other States have repeatedly held that they had power to review the action of these bodies relating to apportionment. In preparing their proposed amendment, your committee have received much valuable assistance from the amendments proposed by Messrs. Lauterbach, No. 32; Vedder, No. 13; Cookinham, No. 48; Mantanye, No. 83; Porter, No. 229; Vedder, No. 92; Jacobs, No. 97; Dean, No. 132; Davies, No. 280, and Peck, No. 359, and have embodied in our proposed amendment the salient features of Mr. Brown's proposed amendment, No. 404. It has received much assistance, also, from the arguments and sugges tions of these gentlemen concerning them, which we here respectfully acknowledge. Your committee have proposed that in all cities comprising an entire county, some of which have no board of supervisors, the duty of erecting the Assembly districts should rest upon the common council, and in all other counties, upon the board of supervisors. In the county of Kings and the city of Brooklyn, which are in the process of reorganization, and where the board of supervisors is to be abolished after December, 1895, and the city boundaries made co-terminus with the county boundaries, this duty has been devolved upon both the board of aldermen and the board of supervisors in joint session. The exhibits hereto attached show the practical working of the apportionment recommended by your committee, on the basis of the citizen population shown by the State census of 1892. This census having been taken by election districts, and not by blocks, the districts in New York county have been laid out according to the election districts as they existed January 1, 1892. Respectfully submitted, TRACY C. BECKER, |