For many people, particularly in the New York metropolitan area, politics tends to mean the national battles in Washington or, in suburban areas, fights over very local issues like school budgets or property taxes. State politics tends to be largely overlooked.

Indeed, while Governor Cuomo is well known, relatively few New Yorkers are much aware of the importance of Shelly Silver, the longtime Democratic speaker of the Assembly or of Nassau County’s own Dean Skelos, Republican majority leader of the State Senate.

This is not completely a matter of citizen apathy. Even The New York Times has relatively limited coverage of Albany, except when there is a major scandal or the legislature is considering a hot button issue like gay marriage. The Albany Times Union, by contrast, covers the state capitol rather comprehensively for its upstate readers.

In any event, there are a number of developments in Albany right now that will have considerable repercussions going forward.

The biggest battle right now involves redistricting, which is required every 10 years after the completion of the census, in this case the 2010 count. Redistricting involves redrawing both the legislative district lines and the Congressional map. The latter map will be painful to some politicians because New York will lose 2 seats in the next Congress on account of slower population growth, going from 29 to 27 seats.

Typically, redistricting has been handled by the legislature which draws the lines primarily with a view to protecting incumbents. Since the legislature has typically been divided in party control (as it is now), a sort of reciprocal gerrymander has resulted, with majority Republicans in the state senate buttressing their incumbents and the Democratic majority in the Assembly doing the same. The Congressional district map is heavily negotiated, with a seat loss divided between the parties.

Governor Cuomo, however, has promoted an independent panel to oversee the redistricting process, with a view to making the districts more compact and, yes, more competitive.

Of course, the idea of more competitive districts is pretty much anathema to most Albany incumbents, who already feel burdened by the need to face the voters every two years. Republicans, who hold the state senate by a razor-thin 32-29 margin (with one Democraticleaning vacancy) are also fearful that the loss of the senate would largely put them out of business as an effective party in the state for the next ten years.

We will see how the redistricting fight plays out. The best guess is that Mr. Cuomo will find a way to accommodate the legislators. A change in the system cannot possibly be accepted by Senate Republicans (who have come up with a proposal to kick the redistricting issue down the road for ten years) and even Assembly Democrats are likely to be lukewarm. And, while Mr. Cuomo may not admit it publicly, his generally centrist governing agenda is probably helped when Republicans have a seat at the table in negotiations with the legislature.

Another odd Albany development is that we may end up with three different primary days in 2012. The Republican presidential primary is already slated for April 24, but a new federal ruling relating to the timing of military ballots may move the primary for Congressional seats to late June. Primary elections for all other offices (legislative, etc.) would remain in September. As with many developments in the state capital, there has to be a better way.