Photo courtesy of Onasill ~ Bill Badzo – Be Safe & Happy via Flickr
A new deadline of May 20 for revised 2022 redistricting maps for the congressional and State senate districts has been ordered by the New York State Supreme Court, according to court documents filed April 29, and the 2022 primary date for congressional and State elections has been postponed to Tuesday, August 23. The court also ordered a new deadline for receipt of overseas and military ballots for the primaries of July 8.
The orders were documented in court paperwork filed with the State of New York Supreme Court, Steuben County on April 29. The orders follow the April 27 decision announced by Chief Judge Janet DiFiore of the New York State Court of Appeals that the court had thrown out the latest, redrawn, redistricting lines voted on by the Democrat-controlled State legislature on Feb. 2, and signed off on by Gov. Kathy Hochul on Feb. 3. As part of the April 27 ruling, the New York Court of Appeals had ordered new redistricting maps and had indicated a likely postponement of the June primary elections.
Source: NYS Courts
DiFiore shared the April 27 split opinion ruling, following months of legal wrangling amid a lawsuit filed by members of the Republican and Conservative Parties which challenged the State legislature’s February vote approving the latest redrawn redistricting maps.
In 2014, New York State amended its constitution to adopt historic reforms to the redistricting process which follows each decennial census by requiring the creation of revised electoral maps by an Independent Redistricting Commission (IRC). This was to avoid what had been seen as certain undemocratic practices up to that point, such as partisan and racial gerrymandering.
Delayed due to the pandemic, 2022 was the first year the new independent redistricting process was to be followed and the new independent commission was to oversee the process, since the adoption of that 2014 constitutional amendment, following the 2020 census, as reported.
Source: NYS Courts
Following the 2020 federal census, due to shifts in New York’s population, New York State lost a congressional seat and other districts were malapportioned, necessitating the redrawing of new district lines. The IRC held a number of virtual sessions with community residents to discuss the redistricting process over a matter of months starting in September 2021. The final Bronx County hearing on the proposed redrawn maps was held on Nov. 9, 2021. That hearing can be watched here. The maps/plans submitted by the commission to the State legislature on Jan. 3, 2022 can be viewed here.
Throughout January 2022, according to court documents, negotiations between the IRC members deteriorated and split along party lines, the IRC was unable to agree upon consensus maps.
Source New York State
The legislature voted on the IRC’s first set of plans, without amendment as required by the State constitution, and rejected both plans. According to the independent redistricting process as set out in the constitutional amendment, “if [the] first set of maps [proposed by the IRC] is rejected, the IRC is required to prepare a second set that, again, would be subject to an up or down vote by the legislature.” The process further specifies that “only upon rejection of a second set of IRC maps” is the legislature free to offer amendments to the maps created by the IRC and, even then, certain restrictions around the process apply.
The legislature notified the IRC of the rejection of the first set of maps, triggering the IRC’s obligation to come up with — within 15 days — a second redistricting plan for the legislature’s review.
On January 24, the IRC announced that it was deadlocked and, as a result, would not present a second plan to the legislature. The State legislature ultimately never voted on a second set of plans by the IRC therefore. Within a week, the Democrats in the legislature — in control of both the senate and assembly — composed and enacted new congressional, senate, and assembly redistricting maps, “undisputedly without any consultation or participation by the minority Republican Party,” according to court documents.
Source New York State
Elected representatives voted to approve the alternate maps proposed by the Democratic Party therefore, and these were ultimately signed off by Gov. Kathy Hochul on Feb. 3, as reported. The State-approved congressional maps for congressional districts 3, 13, 14, 15 and 16 are attached below.
According to court documents, and as one house of the legislature explained during the litigation, in their view “there [was no] reason for the Democratic super-majorities in both houses of the [l]egislature to seek ‘input or involvement’ from the Republican minorities” regarding the development of these legislative maps, characterizing such communications as inviting “time-wasting political theater.”
The New York State Republican Party members immediately mounted a legal challenge. According to court documents, petitioners — New York voters residing in several different congressional districts — commenced the process of challenging the congressional and senate maps. Petitioners alleged that the process by which the 2022 maps were enacted was constitutionally defective because the IRC failed to submit a second redistricting plan as required under the 2014 constitutional amendments and, as such, the legislature lacked authority to compose and enact its own plan.
Source New York State
Petitioners also asserted that the congressional maps were unconstitutionally gerrymandered in favor of the majority party because they both “packed” minority-party voters into a select few districts and “cracked” other pockets of those voters across multiple districts, thereby diluting the competitiveness of those districts. Democrats dispute this assertion.
According to the Court of Appeals, the IRC and the State legislature ultimately failed to follow the procedure as laid out by the State constitution. “A stalemate within the IRC resulted in a breakdown in the mandatory process for submission of electoral maps to the legislature,” according to the court’s opinion. “The legislature responded by creating and enacting [alternate] maps, in a nontransparent manner, controlled exclusively by the dominant political party — doing exactly what they would have done had the 2014 constitutional reforms never been passed.”
In early April, a judge therefore overruled the Feb. 2 vote by the State legislature as being unconstitutional, saying the latest maps were gerrymandered by Democrats, and ordering new maps to be redrawn. Lawmakers had until April 11 to submit new maps, but on Monday, April 4, a judge issued a stay on the case, which temporarily retained the prevailing district lines in place, allowing candidates time to collect the required number of voter signatures needed to get on the ballot for the June Primaries before the deadline. The case was later heard by the New York State Court of Appeals.
On April 27, the NYS Court of Appeals declared the latest congressional and senate maps voted on in early February by the State legislature as void.
“Judicial oversight is required to facilitate the expeditious creation of constitutionally conforming maps for use in the 2022 election and to safeguard the constitutionally protected right of New Yorkers to a fair election,” the April 27 court documents read.
Source New York State
The New York State Court of Appeals requires the maps be redrawn with the assistance of a neutral expert, who must propose the maps by May 16, and finalize them by May 20.
In the context of the April 27 ruling, New York State Conservative Party chairman, Gerard Kassar, said, in part, “The court victory against Kathy Hochul’s and the Democratic state legislators’ attempted gerrymandering of New York senate and congressional lines will be heard all across America. Mrs. Hochul and her Democrat colleagues blatantly attempted to subvert the will of voters, who expressly passed a referendum to create a nonpartisan redistricting commission just a few years ago. Today, the Governor and Democratic Party leaders had their hats handed to them.”
He added, “This decision legally validates what Conservatives, Republicans, editorial boards, and good government groups have been saying for months: the court-rejected lines were right out of the Tammany Hall playbook. This is a good day for democracy in New York.”
On Friday, April 29, in the context of the April 27 ruling, Norwood News spoke briefly with Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz (A.D. 81) who said he disagreed with the April 27 ruling. Democrats have argued that their latest plan corrected historically drawn redistricting lines which, in their view, had disproportionately favored the Republican Party.
Source New York State
Meanwhile State Sen. Alessandra Biaggi (S.D. 34) who, as reported, was running for New York’s 3rd congressional seat, based on the Feb. 2 districting lines, issued a statement on Friday, April 30, saying, “I entered this race because I am deeply committed to fighting for the people of NY-3 and protecting abortion and voting rights, combatting the climate crisis, and expanding access to affordable healthcare and housing. I am the most experienced, qualified, and committed candidate in NY-3, and I am staying in this race.” The senator has since changed her strategy since the latest maps were issued by a court-appointed special master by the May 20 deadline, and has since announced she is now running in New York’s 17th district instead, as reported.
On Tuesday, May 3, Gary Greenberg, a former State political candidate who said he may in the future run again for State office, filed a lawsuit requesting the courts to invalidate petitions submitted by existing candidates for any office, including for the Assembly and Senate, Congress, and State-wide offices, for any petition containing signatories who fall outside the newly drawn State and congressional district lines (lines redrawn since Feb. 3). He further petitioned for the re-opening of a petitioning period for every race, including Assembly, Senate, Congress, and for state-wide offices such as governor and attorney general, allowing new candidates to seek office based on the newly drawn election districts.
The new maps have since been produced by the appointed special master by the May 20 deadline. CUNY Graduate Center had previously made available online comparison maps under its Redistricting & You tool at the following link: https://newyork.redistrictingandyou.org/. The tool enabled the public to quickly determine their prior congressional and State legislative districts to see how any proposed district plans impacted them.
The Redistricting & You website helps provide transparency to the redistricting process, showing how the district lines changed, and how the different district plans compared with each other. According to CUNY, no other site provides all this information in one place with an easy, engaging way to compare prior and current districts. Click here for an example. The site has since been updated to include the latest maps produced by the court appointed special master.
The maps feature a slider tool to transition seamlessly between the prior maps and current ones, providing a powerful interactive visual showing how the lines have changed under the latest plans. Move the slider left to show prior lines, move it to the right to show current districts.
As of May 20, further updates are expected to be received on another court decision in relation to a separately filed law suit and its impact on the primary election date for the State assembly districts, which had been due to go ahead in June, but may also be potentially postponed to August, depending on the outcome of the court decision.
A message posted on the New York State Board of Elections political calendar page reads, “Please be aware that since this is a re-districting year this calendar is subject to change by the Legislature and should be used advisedly.”
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Welcome to the Norwood News, a bi-weekly community newspaper that primarily serves the northwest Bronx communities of Norwood, Bedford Park, Fordham and University Heights. Through our Breaking Bronx blog, we focus on news and information for those neighborhoods, but aim to cover as much Bronx-related news as possible. Founded in 1988 by Mosholu Preservation Corporation, a not-for-profit affiliate of Montefiore Medical Center, the Norwood News began as a monthly and grew to a bi-weekly in 1994. In September 2003 the paper expanded to cover University Heights and now covers all the neighborhoods of Community District 7. The Norwood News exists to foster communication among citizens and organizations and to be a tool for neighborhood development efforts. The Norwood News runs the Bronx Youth Journalism Heard, a journalism training program for Bronx high school students. As you navigate this website, please let us know if you discover any glitches or if you have any suggestions. We’d love to hear from you. You can send e-mails to norwoodnews@norwoodnews.org or call us anytime (718) 324-4998.
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