New York City has its share of gerrymandered election districts — like the one that was pinched and squeezed and pulled and teased to the apparent advantage of a serial sexual harasser with eyes on a City Council seat.
As The Post’s Sally Goldenberg reported Monday, Council Speaker Chris Quinn is expected to approve new maps that would slide Assemblyman Vito Lopez’s Brooklyn home into a more favorable district — and put him in position to cruise to a seat on the council if he runs next year.
Now, Quinn says she hasn’t spoken to Lopez since his disgrace this summer, when she called on him to resign and disappear from public life.
But as she readies her own run for mayor, she seems bizarrely willing to leave her colleagues — and the city itself — with Councilman Vito Lopez as a parting gift.
Lopez lives in the council’s 37th District, but new maps approved last Friday would shift his home into the 34th District.
As Goldenberg reports, “Lopez has a vastly better chance of winning the seat from the 34th District, which aligns better with his power base in Bushwick.”
Quinn appointed one-third of the committee that drew the district lines, and as speaker has the power to quash them.
But if she fails to intercede and allows Lopez to be elected, it would be a travesty.
Recall why Vito’s name is mud: Female employees say he created an “atmosphere of intimidation” in his offices, berating and threatening them — and often groping and kissing them against their will.
In Albany, that earned him a censure.
In New York City, that doesn’t seem to make much difference.
Quinn has utterly refused to tell The Post whether she’d block a Vito seat.
“I think that is the most ludicrous thing I have ever heard,” she said. “He wouldn’t get three votes. And I can’t imagine he would do it.”
Judging by Lopez’s 78-point victory margin in his Assembly race this month, it’s hard to imagine why he wouldn’t do it — if he’s so inclined. He’d get a helluva lot more than three votes.
After The Post reported the plan Monday, Quinn suddenly got religion — and said she’d “campaign day and night” against Lopez if he runs for the council.
But public campaigns don’t matter nearly as much as the back-room dealing that has worked to Lopez’s advantage.
Which means the Lopez threat is real — and Quinn has a test on her hands.
Someone who presumes to the mayoralty should have the guts to refuse Lopez any favors — in fact, she should go out of her way to make his (political) life a misery.
Quinn has also taken a stand against bullying in schools, the military and the workplace — but the council’s big boss is refusing to face up to the bully in her own schoolyard: Vito the groper.
So, will Quinn stand by the principles she’s endorsed, and block the creation of a special Vito district — or will she allow the disgraced lech Lopez to vault himself into the City Council?
Time’s a-wastin’, Madame Speaker.