Request to use old maps tossed

Judge: Forced voting on gerrymandered lines would trigger “chaos”

A federal judge refused Wednesday to order New York to hold its congressional and state Senate primaries this spring using district maps declared unconstitutional by state judges, saying a legal effort by Democrats to revive the maps looked unlikely to succeed.

“Let’s be frank. This is a Hail Mary pass, the object of which is to take a long shot to have the primary conducted on state lines that the court says is unconstitutional,” U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan said.

A group of voters filed a lawsuit asking federal judges to intervene in New York’s redistricting battle after the state’s highest court ruled that district maps crafted by the state Legislature had been improperly gerrymandered to favor Democrats. Those maps would have given Democrats a clear edge in 22 of the state’s 26 congressional districts.

Replacement maps are now being drawn by an independent scholar at Carnegie Mellon University under the supervision of a state judge. The judge ordered the state’s primaries for Congress and state Senate moved from June to August so the redistricting process would have enough time to play out.

A small group of voters, represented by Democratic attorney Marc Elias, asked the federal courts to block that plan, arguing that New York has to hold its primary in June because of a 2012 court order by another federal judge, Gary Sharpe, who is based in Albany.

The lawsuit said that if the state has to hold its primary in June, it is too late to draft new maps. Kaplan said forcing the state to use unconstitutional district maps simply to comply with an old court deadline that could easily be changed would trigger “chaos.”