Assembly maps survive a late legal challenge

A New York judge on Wednesday rejected a last-minute challenge to the state’s new Assembly maps, allowing them to remain in place for this year’s primary elections, after he struck down the congressional maps earlier this spring.

Justice Patrick McAllister of Steuben County Supreme Court said he believed the Assembly maps were created in an unconstitutional manner by Democrats in the Legislature, but cited in his decision a lack of time before the primary, and bipartisan opposition to the motion.

McAllister, whose high-stakes decision to trash the congressional map was upheld last month by the state’s highest court, emphasized in his five-page ruling on Wednesday that the Assembly maps were not initially challenged in the case.

He wrote that new challenges against the Assembly maps were “untimely” and that a decision striking down the maps “would be extremely burdensome to the court and the existing parties.”

A pair of motions challenging the Assembly maps did not arrive until the start of this month, less than two months before Primary Day for the Assembly.

Republicans in the chamber united with Democrats in opposition to late changes to the maps.

The decision sets the stage for Assembly primaries to take place as planned on June 28, though elections for Congress and the state Senate have been postponed to August to make time for a redraw of the respective state maps.

The ruling Democrats in the Legislature drew new congressional and legislative maps this winter after a bipartisan commission created for the once-a-decade redistricting failed to reach a consensus and gave up.

The parties who intervened in the case with hopes of scrapping the Assembly maps could still appeal. But it was not clear if they would.

Aaron Foldenauer, a lawyer representing one of the so-called intervenors, said he was “looking at all of our options” but had not determined a course of action.

“This was delay by design: the state Assembly waited until the last minute to break the law,” Foldenauer said. The Assembly maps drew little scrutiny in comparison to the House chart. The congressional map was widely viewed as crafted to help Democrats, putting their party in an advantage in 22 of 26 New York districts.