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NY voters to get new congressional districts in major win for Democrats
By
Jon Campbell
Published Dec 12, 2023
Modified Dec 12, 2023
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Photo by Matt McClain/The Washington Post via Getty Images
By
Jon Campbell
Published Dec 12, 2023
Modified Dec 12, 2023
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New York will redraw its congressional map ahead of the 2024 elections after the state’s top court dealt national Democrats a major win on Tuesday — ensuring voters will see their districts change for the second time in as many election cycles.
In a 4-3 decision, the Court of Appeals threw out New York’s current 26 congressional districts and cleared the way for the state Independent Redistricting Commission to begin drawing new boundaries. The court ruled that the bipartisan panel should get a second chance to finish its work after deadlocking in 2022.
The ruling comes just a year after the court ordered an independent mapmaker to draw the lines for the 2022 elections after an attempted Democratic gerrymander, which helped lead to Republicans picking up three seats in New York en route to winning a narrow House majority.
Despite Republican objections, the court ruled those districts were only temporary, remaining in effect only for the 2022 elections. Now, New York is likely to wind up with a new congressional map more favorable to Democrats, which could have significant national implications as the parties battle for control of the House next year with the GOP holding a razor-thin majority.
Democrats hailed the ruling as a victory for New Yorkers, while Republicans — and the court’s dissenting judges — painted it as an attack on democracy.
“As a result of the court’s enlightened decision, the Independent Redistricting Commission can now begin the process of drawing fair maps that give New Yorkers an opportunity to elect the representation they deserve,” said House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, the Brooklyn Democrat who would be in line to become House speaker were his party to win a majority next year.
In a joint statement, New York GOP Chairman Ed Cox and House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik called the decision “plainly wrong on the Constitution and the law.”
“In their relentless pursuit of power at all costs, corrupt Democrats in Albany and Washington have politicized the Court of Appeals,” they said. “Its once esteemed reputation is in tatters.”
The court’s split decision Tuesday is the latest step in a decade-long redistricting battle that has repeatedly weaved its way through the courts and is likely to do so again.
In 2014, voters approved creating the IRC — a panel of five Democratic and five Republican appointees — to draw New York’s congressional and state legislative lines as part of the once-a-decade redistricting process, which is meant to account for population shifts with each new Census. The process was first put into place last year.
But it imploded when the IRC failed to send a second set of congressional districts to state lawmakers after the Legislature rejected its first set of proposals.
That led the Legislature’s Democratic majorities to step in and draw a Democrat-friendly congressional map: President Joe Biden won 22 of the 26 districts during the 2020 election. Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, signed the map into law, and Republicans promptly sued.
The Court of Appeals ultimately agreed with Republicans, ruling Democrats gerrymandered the map in their favor and didn’t follow proper procedure when the IRC process imploded. The courts ordered an independent mapmaker to step in, drawing a more-competitive map before last year’s elections — and Republicans performed well.
That led to Tuesday’s ruling, which was the result of a lawsuit supported by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Democrats argued the IRC should get another shot at shaping the state’s congressional districts, despite missing its deadlines last year.
A majority of Court of Appeals judges agreed. That includes Chief Judge Rowan Wilson and Associate Judges Jenny Rivera and Shirley Troutman, who often form a liberal bloc. They were joined by Dianne Renwick, an Appellate Division justice filling in for Associate Judge Caitlin Halligan, who recused herself.
“Indisputably, the Constitution requires the IRC to deliver a second set of maps and implementing legislation to the legislature,” Wilson wrote in the majority opinion.
In a dissenting opinion, Associate Judge Anthony Cannataro accused the majority of discounting the possibility of political gerrymandering and throwing out a set of maps that were constitutional.
The independently drawn maps ordered by the courts last year should’ve remained in place, he wrote.
“This time, however, politics triumphs over free and fair elections,” Cannataro wrote in an opinion signed by fellow Associate Judges Michael Garcia and Madeline Singas, who make up a more conservative bloc of the court.
Renwick, the fill-in judge, cast what was ultimately the deciding vote. It was a flip from former Chief Judge Janet DiFiore, who sided with the conservative bloc in last year’s redistricting case in New York.
Now, with the Court of Appeals’ blessing, the IRC will get another shot to redraw the districts. From there, it will be up to the state Legislature to accept or reject the proposal. If the Democratic-dominated state Legislature votes against the IRC’s map, state legislators will be permitted to draw the congressional map on their own. Hochul will have to sign or veto the Legislature’s proposal.
From there, the map could easily find its way back in court. The GOP could again challenge whether the districts violate the state constitution’s ban on partisan gerrymandering, or the act of drawing the map in a way that benefits a particular party or candidate.
In a joint statement, Attorney General Letitia James and Hochul praised the ruling.
“Today's redistricting decision will ensure all New Yorkers are fairly and equitably represented by elected officials,” they said. “As the Court of Appeals reaffirmed today, district lines should be drawn by the Independent Redistricting Commission.”
Republicans disagreed. State Senate Minority Leader Rob Ortt of the Buffalo area said the decision “diminishes the voice of millions of New Yorkers who demanded fairness, transparency, and accountability in the redistricting process.”
On the national level, the ruling could counteract a previous ruling in North Carolina that allowed Republicans to obtain a more GOP-friendly map there earlier this year.
On the local level, the repercussions could also be significant.
The current congressional map, for example, forced longtime Democratic Reps. Jerry Nadler and Carolyn Maloney into the same Manhattan district, leading to a rare primary among party heavyweights that Nadler won. A new congressional map could remedy that, allowing both to run again separately if they so choose.
The court’s ruling gave the IRC until Feb. 28 to submit a new map to the Legislature.
New York’s congressional primaries are set for June 2024.
This story was updated to include additional information from the Court of Appeals’ decision and reactions from elected officials.
Tagged
new york city
Kathy Hochul
new york state
Politics
Jon Campbell
Jon Campbell covers the New York State Capitol for WNYC and Gothamist. Prior to that, he covered the Capitol for more than a decade for the USA TODAY Network. He has twice earned the Walter T. Brown Memorial Award, an honor given annually by the Legislative Correspondents Association alumni for outstanding state government coverage. Jon grew up in the Buffalo area and graduated from the University at Albany. Got a tip? Email Jon at [email protected] or Signal at JonCampbellNY.90.
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