In a strong victory for New York’s Republicans, the state’s highest court today struck down recently enacted election district maps in a 4-3 decision ending a months-long legal battle.

“I think the Court of Appeals did a great job of upholding the constitution for the people of New York who voted in the 2014 amendments,” an analyst with the Empire Center, Cam Macdonald, said.

The decision agrees with the trial court’s finding that the congressional and state senate district maps were in violation of New York’s 2014 redistricting amendment. The new state assembly maps have been deemed acceptable.

“The decision of the NYS Court of Appeals today was a victory for the People of New York State,” the spokesman for the Republicans who filed the lawsuit, John Faso, said. “The Petitioners and the arguments they presented were totally vindicated today.”

The court’s decision found that the process by which the maps were enacted was unconstitutional. The maps were supposed to originate with New York’s Independent Redistricting Commission, but the Democrat-controlled legislature decided not to use that entity’s maps and drew its own.

Mr. MacDonald argues that the legislature never meant to follow the state constitution in this redistricting cycle.

“It appears that the legislature always intended to take that course, first with the proposed constitutional amendment and then with the law that it passed last fall,” he said.

“When the IRC did not submit a second set of maps or a second map the legislature just could not move past that,” he added.

He is referencing a proposed amendment that would have repealed the higher necessary vote threshold for adopting maps when one party controls the legislature.

The Court of Appeals decision found that “the legislature failed to follow the procedure commanded by the State Constitution” in its drawing of maps.

“I think the court was absolutely correct in that the constitution sets out a very clear process,” Mr. MacDonald said.

“I think what’s been misunderstood is that the legislature had a remedy,” he added.

Mr. MacDonald argues that the legislature had the chance to solve the deadlock in the Independent Redistricting Commission.

The legislature “could have gotten a writ of mandamus ordering the members of the IRC to vote on the maps,” Mr. MacDonald said. “But they chose not to do that.”

As well as laying out a process, New York’s  2014 redistricting amendment specifically outlaws the drawing of district maps with the purpose of offering an advantage to any specific political party or candidate. 

The Court of Appeals agreed with the judge at the trial court in Steuben County, Judge Patrick McAllister, whose initial decision ruled the maps to be a partisan gerrymander.

The court also found that “judicial oversight is required to facilitate the expeditious creation of constitutionally conforming maps for use in the 2022 election and to safeguard the constitutionally protected right of New Yorkers to a fair election.”

Thus, the drawing of maps will fall to a court-appointed special master, Jonathan Cervas, a fellow at Carnegie Mellon’s Institute of Politics and Strategy.

According to the decision, it will also “likely be necessary” to move New York’s primary elections into August. They are currently scheduled for June 28.

Mr. Cervas will have until May 16 to produce a preliminary map and must finalize it by May 24. The process will begin on May 6, when “interested parties, and any person” will be able to “appear before” Mr. Cervas.