No mulligans on Assembly map
At noon today, five Manhattan appellate justices — Dianne Renwick, Ellen Gesmer, Peter Moulton, Tanya Kennedy and Manuel Mendez — will hear a case in their beautiful courtroom at Madison Ave. and 25th St. impacting all 20 million people in New York State. The issue is the fundamental question of whether the 150 members of the Assembly shall have districts that comport with the state Constitution.
The answer is yes and this very court has already unanimously ruled, on June 10 of last year, that the “map is invalid,” having been produced by Speaker Carl Heastie and the Legislature in violation of the Constitution. The justices decreed that a new Assembly map be prepared and 150 new districts drawn for the election next year.
The matter was then sent back to Manhattan state Supreme Court Justice Larry Love to make it happen. But Love, who had earlier erred in declaring the current Assembly map kosher (which his judicial betters overruled), then erred again in deciding that the Legislature — the same body which violated the Constitution with the Assembly map, as well as for the state Senate and Congress maps — should get a second chance.
Wrong again, Justice Love. The top court in New York, the Court of Appeals, has already decided that the Constitution is clear that when the Legislature breaks the Constitution’s redistricting process, the courts (using a special master) must draw the maps.
Today’s appellate panel is obligated to follow the Court of Appeals and direct Love to create the districts. He can use as a guide the dead, and now reanimated, state Independent Redistricting Commission in any fashion he chooses. But the final call must be judicial, not legislative.
The day after the Court of Appeals knocked down the senatorial and congressional districts, but left the Assembly districts in place, we called for someone to file suit. Plaintiffs Paul Nichols and Gary Greenberg with their lawyers, Jim Walden and Pete Devlin, have since been waging this just fight. Victory is certain.