Redistricting saga still unfolding
Public gives its input on redrawing of boundaries; final maps expected by May 24
An acting state Supreme Court justice in Steuben County and a “special master,” who are tasked with redrawing New York’s political boundaries for the next decade, were peppered with politically charged arguments during a hearing Friday as the process began to undo the maps that were created in what the Court of Appeals ruled was an unconstitutional and partisan undertaking.
The legal proceeding in the town of Bath was the first there since the Court of Appeals issued its ruling last week, upending the primary elections for at least the state Senate and congressional races. The final decision by the judge and map drawer could heavily influence the outcome of state and local elections for the next 10 years.
Depending on how the court draws the congressional map, Republicans could gain at least three House seats in Congress, a number that could prove consequential in determining the majority following midterm elections in November. A number of proposed maps have been submitted for consideration to the court in recent days, including by both parties, in a case that brought an unprecedented rebuke of a redistricting process that was supposed to be void of politics.
Attorneys for Democratic state officials argued their revised maps, which are tweaks to maps that were struck down by the courts as intentionally gerrymandered, respect existing political boundaries while only correcting what had been explicitly identified in court rulings as problematic.
The Democrats also critiqued Republican maps as drawn to create Republican-friendly districts and to “dismantle” minoritymajority districts in New York City that were drawn under the Voting Rights Act.
“There’s no other way to put it: They cooked the books,” Alex Goldenberg, an attorney for Senate Democrats, said about the Republican-proposed map that would create at least seven favorable congressional districts for the GOP — at least three more than they offered.
The Republican petitioners countered that their latest proposed maps would create constitutionally supported boundaries, pass testing under computer simulations with “flying colors,” and should also be scrutinized for fairness under an “eye test.”
At least one district drawn upstate, combining two college towns and the communities between them, is wholly inappropriate, the attorneys argued.
“It is plainly designed to steal a new upstate district for the Democratic Party,” said Sean Dutton, an attorney for the Republicans.
Many of the public participants, during a proceeding that unfolded like a public hearing, pressed to keep “communities of interest” intact in the maps that had been created for the state Senate and congressional districts.
It functioned as the first public hearing on the maps in five months.
The maps are expected to be finalized by May 24, although a preliminary version by the court-appointed special master, political scientist Jonathan Cervas, is scheduled to be completed a week prior.
The process now playing out is a result of the state’s highest court rejecting the state Legislature’s redistricting maps, which the majority of the Democrat-appointed court ruled not only failed to follow the constitutionally prescribed process to create them, but also were illicitly drawn with the intent to favor Democratic candidates in a longused strategy known as gerrymandering.
Concurrent legal challenges are pending to undo the state Assembly maps, although it’s unclear if those motions, filed earlier this week, will have time to complete the legal process in order to move the primaries for the Assembly and statewide office races from June to August. State officials are also awaiting a federal court to approve a waiver to hold some of the primary elections on Aug. 23 instead of June 28.
At the federal level, the congressional lines will factor heavily into the likelihood of the number of Democrats that could win or defend House seats in New York.
Local advocacy groups and government watchdogs made their case to Cervas and acting state Supreme Court Justice Patrick F. Mcallister Friday morning, in a packed courtroom more than a three-hour drive west of the state Capitol.
Some made arguments reminiscent of the early days of the state’s redistricting process — five months after the state had its last public hearing on the political maps.
Some argued that Black, Latino and Asian American communities, as well as Yiddish-speaking populations, were not properly represented in the proposed maps.
“I’m 71 years old. This is urgent. This is not something I like doing,” said Esmeralda Simmons, a civil rights attorney and founder of the Center for Law and Social Justice at Medgar Evers College. “However, it’s important. And it’s so important that we urge you to have more hearings.”
The state’s Independent Redistricting Commission, which held the last public hearing on the boundary maps on Dec. 6, failed to agree to a final set of maps, leaving it to Democrats in control of the state Legislature to do the job. The commission reached its final impasse in late January.
Voters in 2014 had agreed to change the state constitution to create the commission and establish the threshold for a gerrymandered map.
Judges, political scientists, politicians and good government groups have said in recent months that the commission appears to have been set up to fail.
The Court of Appeals ruling said the 2014 constitutional amendment voters approved was intended to ensure the public and not elected officials would draw the maps. Lower court judges, including Mcallister, are elected by their local constituency; Mcallister won his 2017 primary in the heavily Republican County with about 3,000 votes and by a margin of 323 votes.
The ruling does not necessarily provide a remedy for state lawmakers to avoid the same situation unfolding next time around, but instead could lead to the court having to draw new maps every decade after the U.S. Census is released.