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Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver has blocked release of proposed new congressional lines for Harlem Rep. Charles Rangel’s new district because of a bitter, racially charged battle between Manhattan and Bronx Democrats, insiders have told The Post.
Relations are so tense that Assemblyman Carl Heastie, the Bronx Democratic chairman, is accusing Manhattan Chairman and fellow Assemblyman Keith Wright of trying to “colonize’’ The Bronx by demanding a three-county district controlled by Harlem powerbrokers but containing an overwhelming number of Bronx and Westchester voters, sources said.
Wright — who plans to run for Rangel’s seat when the 81-year old disgraced congressional veteran retires, perhaps in 2014 — has responded by accusing Heastie of trying to “snatch an historically black Harlem district for The Bronx so he [Heastie] can run for the seat himself’’ or, as an alternative, turn the seat into the new “Latino district’’ sought by Hispanic Manhattan and Bronx Democrats, other sources said.
Wright has told Assembly insiders that Heastie is “intentionally obstructing’’ resolution of the dispute, possibly in hopes that a federal court this week will take over the redistricting process and draw congressional lines that favor The Bronx, an Assembly insider said.
“Carl is talking about these arrogant guys from Manhattan trying to dictate to The Bronx and to Westchester, when it is The Bronx in particular that has the overwhelming votes that will make up the new district,’’ the insider continued.
Also galling Heastie and other Bronx Democrats are demographic trends that show a declining number of African-Americans in greater Harlem, just as The Bronx’s black population continues to grow.
“Keith Wright’s Assembly district is barely majority black right now, and I’d predict that if Charlie Rangel had to run for Congress just in that district, he’d lose,’’ said a prominent black activist with firsthand knowledge of Harlem politics.
The Post has learned that a last-ditch effort to solve the dispute involved a deal under which Heastie and Westchester Democratic Chairman Reginald Lafayette would join with Wright to approve a Rangel-friendly district on one condition: that a majority vote of the three county chairmen — Wright, Heastie and Lafayette — would decide Rangel’s successor in advance.
But the offer was rejected by Wright, with the backing of Rangel and other Harlem leaders, because it all-but-guaranteed that Rangel’s successor wouldn’t come from Manhattan.
Wright, Heastie and Lafayette, like Rangel, are African-American.
Powerful Democrats said the normally skillful and decisive Silver appears paralyzed by the certainty that whatever district lines are drawn for Rangel will anger dozens of influential African-American, Latino and white Democrats, even including some in Queens, where county Democratic Chairman Joseph Crowley’s congressional district now reaches into a part of The Bronx.
They contend that Silver is also hoping the federal court will ultimately decide the boundaries of the Rangel district and relieve him of the decision-making burden.
“It’s a classic ‘horns of a dilemma’ situation, because whatever Shelly does is going to leave a lot of his core supporters unhappy,’’ said a source involved in the redistricting process.
New York will lose two of its 29 congressional seats this year — expected to be one Democratic and one Republican — because of changes in population in the 2010 US Census.
Silver, meanwhile, blamed state Senate Republicans for the internal Democratic tensions, claiming the GOP’s alleged refusal to identify a Republican congressional district for elimination made it impossible to complete work on new lines for the Rangel district.
But another knowledgeable Democrat said, “If that’s the case, you wouldn’t have Wright and Heastie going at each other. They’d be going after the Senate Republicans instead.’’
Silver conceded “it’s possible’’ that no agreements would be reached this week and that final congressional lines would be imposed by the federal courts.