4 minute read
STRUCK DOWN
New York’s highest court shatters the new district maps
Elections for Congress and state Senate are thrown into disarray.
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By Jeff Coltin and Rebecca C. Lewis
THE 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 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 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
Voters may be thoroughly confused over the next few weeks as the primary election schedule and the districts themselves will change again.
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.
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
– Blair Horner, New York Public Interest Research Group executive director
from the left and right, or Assembly members. “Incumbents want less time. They want a nice short campaign,” said a former state legislator who asked for anonymity to discuss former colleagues. “They start out with the name recognition and the money.” It would be logical to simply combine the primaries, the source conceded, “but logic doesn’t always hold in Albany.”
The court reasoned that given the state’s history with holding primaries on different days, state election officials could handle this sudden change in the political calendar. A spokesperson for the state Board of Elections did not immediately return a request for comment and immediate details about what the new political calendar might look like remained scarce. New draft maps are due by May 16, with the state Supreme Court – rather than lawmakers – responsible for approving them.
The ruling is also shaking up just about every congressional and state Senate campaign in the state. Incumbents whose districts did not change much in the last round of redistricting will now have another stressful waiting period to see if the
MADELINE SINGAS Nominated: 2021 by Andrew Cuomo Party: Democratic
DISSENTING OPINIONS
JENNY RIVERA
Nominated: 2013 by Andrew Cuomo Party: Democratic
SHIRLEY TROUTMAN
Nominated: 2021 by Kathy Hochul Party: Democratic
ROWAN WILSON
Nominated: 2017 by Andrew Cuomo Party: Democratic
