The State of Play in New York’s Redistricting Struggle

New York’s highest court is set to hear one of the most significant cases in years Tuesday, in what could be the final battle over the constitutionality of the state’s newest voting district maps. The case will have ramifications for New York’s 2014 constitutional amendment against gerrymandering and possibly for the balance of power in the U.S. House of Representatives.An Empire Center analyst, Cam MacDonald, spoke with the Sun about the significance of the case.“The case before the Court of Appeals will determine the fate of the 2014 constitutional amendments to discourage political gerrymandering and encourage transparency and accountability in redistricting,” Mr. MacDonald said.“If the Court of Appeals rules the amendments mean what they say, the Legislature’s congressional maps should get rejected,” he added. “If not, the 2014 amendments were meaningless and New Yorkers will need to go back to the drawing board between now and 2032 and try again to get what they thought they were voting for in 2014,” he concluded.New York’s redistricting fight centers on maps drawn by the state’s legislature, which is controlled by Democrats, and the process by which these maps were enacted into law.The MapsThe Republicans who brought the lawsuit allege that the maps illegally offer advantages to Democratic candidates and were drawn with the intention of doing so.The new maps would create 20 congressional seats that appear safely Democratic, four Republican-leaning seats, and two competitive seats. New York currently sends 19 Democrats and eight Republicans to the House onof Representatives, meaning Republicans would likely lose between two and four of their seats in New York. One of New York’s seats was lost to reapportionment.For reference, President Biden, a Democrat, carried about 60 percent of the vote in New York in 2020 while President Trump won 38 percent. This was roughly in line with the 2018 gubernatorial election, when Governor Cuomo won with about 60 percent of the vote compared to the Republican Marc Molinaro’s 36 percent.A split of about 16 Democratic representatives to 10 Republican representatives would be proportional to the most recent statewide election results.With Democrats holding an 11-seat majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, a swing of just six seats could thrust the GOP into the majority in the lower chamber, illustrating the importance of this year’s redistricting process.New York’s new House maps were found to be in violation of New York’s 2014 redistricting amendment both at the trial court in Steuben County and at the Fourth Appellate Division in Rochester.The 2014 constitutional amendment explicitly banned the drawing of district maps “for the purpose of favoring or disfavoring incumbents or other particular candidates or political parties.”The state assembly and senate maps were also challenged in the Republican lawsuit. The trial judge for the case in Steuben County, Patrick McAllister, ruled that these maps were also gerrymandered; a five-judge appellate panel overturned that decision, allowing those maps to stay in place.The Redistricting ProcessThe Court of Appeals will also weigh the role of the legislature in the redistricting process in New York.In essence, the 2014 amendment lays out a new process for drawing district maps, requiring a bipartisan Independent Redistricting Commission to draw and submit them. The support of seven of the 10 members of the commission is required to finalize a map. The commission was supposed to choose a map by January 1, 2022.If there is no agreed-upon map, the commission is supposed to submit the set of maps that had the most support, or all of the maps that were considered. This year, the legislature rejected the commission’s maps and chose to draw its own.The League of Women Voters amicus curiae brief on the subject notes “the legislature may only amend the redistricting plan if the commission’s plan is rejected twice by the legislature.”The brief also notes that the commission did not even try to submit another map after the first submission was rejected.“The two-step procedure guarantees the People a full opportunity to obtain the benefits of nonpartisan — or at least less partisan — redistricting whenever the legislation implementing the IRC’s first redistricting plan does not become law,” the league wrote.The courts have delivered two decisions on the issue. The trial court ruled that the way in which these maps were enacted was unconstitutional, whereas the appellate division ruled that it was a legitimate process.The Court of Appeals will offer the final opinion on the legality of the mapping process. The spokesman for the Republicans who filed the case, John Faso, worries that if the appellate division’s decision is upheld it would make the constitutional provision requiring the commission to draw the maps “a dead letter,” likely allowing future legislators to circumnavigate the commission as well.

The State of Play in New York’s Redistricting Struggle

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