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CityAndStateNY.com
May 2, 2022
New York’s highest court shatters the new district maps Elections for Congress and state Senate are thrown into disarray. By Jeff Coltin and Rebecca C. Lewis
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HE LONG REDISTRICTING saga in New York will only continue, as the state Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling that deemed newly drawn state Senate and congressional maps unconstitutional. The decision immediately rocked the state’s political world, but it will have massive impacts on the average voter as well. New Yorkers will find themselves in new districts (again), and they will need to keep track of changing primary dates. In a 4-3 decision, New York’s highest court concluded that the state Legislature
HARKENRIDER V. HOCHUL On April 27, the state Court of Appeals ruled 4-3 that the Independent Redistricting Commission and the state Legislature violated the procedures for drawing new legislative maps laid out in the state constitution and that the state’s congressional districts were gerrymandered to favor Democrats. Each of the three dissenting judges wrote their own opinions, which were agreed to in part by the others.
did not have the constitutional authority to draw the maps at all – independent of the gerrymandering question – so it tossed the state Senate and congressional lines on procedural grounds. But the Assembly map will stay in place because it was never named in the lawsuit, so the court couldn’t make a decision about it despite its view that lawmakers had no right to draw the maps. So now, an independent expert will help redraw two of the three new sets of legislative lines for this year’s elections. If redrawing the maps for a June 28 primary date sounds impossible, that’s because it probably is. As part of its decision, the Court of Appeals said that the primary elections for state Senate and Congress will be delayed, possibly until Aug. 23, but left it up to the state Board of Elections to figure out the details. Every other primary – for Assembly, U.S. Senate, governor and lieutenant governor, and lower level offices such as district leader – is still expected to take place on June 28 as originally scheduled. That means New York will briefly return to its old model of bifurcated primary elections, a practice the state only recently abolished when it consolidated the congressional and state primaries in 2019. Previously, primaries for state office occurred in September, while those for Congress took place in June. “The court’s
Voters may be thoroughly confused over the next few weeks as the primary election schedule and the districts themselves will change again.
right that the state had a bifurcated process in the past, but that stunk,” said Blair Horner, executive director of the government watchdog New York Public Interest Research Group. “The good news is we’ll get better lines, the bad news is that it’s going to be painful to keep track of what’s going on.” And don’t expect a push from the state Legislature and the governor to move primary day and consolidate the elections. There could be legal challenges, and it probably wouldn’t be helpful for the governor, who is facing primary challenges
MAJORITY OPINION
CHIEF JUDGE JANET DIFIORE Nominated: 2015 by Andrew Cuomo Party: Democratic (Republican until 2007)
ANTHONY CANNATARO Nominated: 2021 by Andrew Cuomo Party: Democratic
MICHAEL GARCIA Nominated: 2016 by Andrew Cuomo Party: Republican
