Hinchey will not seek reelection

[Jim Lane]

6. There'll probably be no successor -- district will be dismembered.

New York must lose two Congressional seats in the redistricting. With Hinchey retiring, chopping up that district will be an obvious and painless way to account for one of the lost seats.

The district isn't exactly "compact and contiguous" -- see map: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:New_York_District_22_109th_US_Congress.png The redistricting can readily move pieces into various other districts to make the new map work.

There's a broader sense in which there'll be no successor, of course. Hinchey has been a stalwart liberal despite being in a more centrist upstate district. He won his first election by only three percent, and even in 2010, after nine terms in office, he won by only four percent.

I'm grateful for the people like Jerry Nadler who are uncompromisingly liberal, but they represent very liberal districts, and they don't imperil their political futures. Hinchey could always have tacked somewhat to the right and given himself a nice cushion of votes, but he didn't. He kept fighting the good fight, and damn the torpedoes.

He's 73 so I can understand his decision to retire -- but, damn, he will be missed.