Once a decade, state lawmakers have the job of redrawing boundary lines for Assembly, State Senate and congressional districts to reflect changes found in the latest census. Lawmakers have made their first pass at new state legislative lines. YNN's Bill Carey says two Syracuse area state senators say they're still reviewing the task force recommendations.

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SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- While the goal, supposedly, are lines drawn without undue influence from lawmakers, the reality is, members of the majorities in the Senate and Assembly do get their way.

Take State Senator John DeFrancisco's new district as an example. As proposed, he would lose large areas of the City of Syracuse. But the mapmakers made sure he held on to parts of the city, including one neighborhood: Sedgewick. And part of the reason the effort was made to keep this neighborhood in the district was because this is where Senator John DeFrancisco calls home.

“I think it would be a little bit unfortunate that, if I'm in the Senate for 20 years, and chairman of Finance for the Senate, that the district would be crafted so that I have to move in order to continue to represent somebody,” DeFrancisco said.

When it came to State Senate districts, republicans ruled. But despite that fact, DeFrancisco's neighboring senator, democrat David Valesky, ended up with a fairly safe district for him. Some might argue that, as a member of the new independent democratic caucus, which has worked with the GOP majority, he was given a pass.

Valesky said, “There was no lobbying for any district to be drawn a certain way. The only thing that I have been very clear on, from a perspective of what districts should look like and I've been very clear. I actually sponsored the Independent Commission bill.”

Valesky's proposal is a constitutional amendment that would change the way redistricting happens every decade. But is it possible to remove politics from what is, at its core, a political process?

“The ultimate goal should be to reduce, as much as possible, the influence that politics has in the redistricting process. Can it be entirely eliminated? It's a good question. But we can certainly improve upon a process,” Valesky said.

“You can't divorce politics from a political system,” DeFransciso said.

DeFrancisco remains a skeptic.

“If anyone truly believes that elected officials, who are going to appoint someone to a redistricting process, are not going to have some political leanings toward the people who are appointing them, I think you're acting a little bit naïve,” DeFrancisco said.

With the threat of a gubernatorial veto and more hearings planned, neither lawmaker is expecting even these new district lines to survive for very long.

The legislative task force overseeing the redistricting process has yet to release its version of the state's congressional districts. The challenge there? Due to falling population, the state is losing two congressional districts and lawmakers must find a way to divvy up the remaining districts.