Who Slides In After Weiner Pulls Out?
After an obscure, underreported scandal thrust Congressman Anthony Weiner from office, a special election scheduled for September has pitted Democratic Assemblyman David Weprin against Bob Turner, the conservative Republican who lost against Weiner last year with just 39 percent of the vote. If those both seem like small names (who and who?) for the district that has given us not only Weiner but also Chuck Schumer, it could be because the seat might soon cease to exist. Though gerrymandering is unpredictable, “it seems fairly likely that Weiner’s seat will be one of the two seats chopped up in redistricting,” Colin Campbell, who runs The Brooklyn Politics blog, told us. “The lack of recorded population growth in Queens and Nassau means it’s likely one of the losing districts will come from that area of the world”—the 9th District includes southeast Brooklyn and a large chunk of Queens—“and Weprin was probably selected partially because he agreed to go quietly.” If Turner wins, though? “It could shuffle things up substantially!”