Judge on NY’s top court recuses herself from House map case

The powerful court tasked with determining the fate of New York’s congressional map has received a shakeup after a judge recused herself and was replaced.

Judge Caitlin Halligan of the state’s top court, the Court of Appeals, cited a close personal relationship with an attorney or party in the case, said Gary Spencer, a court spokesman.

Halligan did not provide further explanation on her recusal form, Spencer said. The judge has been replaced by Dianne Renwick, the presiding justice on the State Supreme Court’s appellate division panel in Manhattan.

Halligan, a liberal judge who joined the Court of the Appeals this year, was previously seen as a potentially key vote in the case. She was appointed to the court after it decided, in a 4-to-3 vote, to reject a Democratic-drawn House map last year.

The Court of Appeals jurist who wrote the opinion voiding the Democrats’ map, Chief Judge Janet DiFiore, resigned last year, opening a slot.

In the current case before the Court of Appeals, Hoffmann v. New York State Independent Redistricting Commission, Democrats are seeking to have the existing map thrown out in time for the 2024 election.

Democrats have blamed the map, which was drawn by an independent expert in Pennsylvania, for contributing to their midterm losses by splitting Democratic voting blocs into different districts. Republicans flipped four House seats in New York last year.

In court, Democrats have pushed for the state’s trouble-plagued Independent Redistricting Commission to get another chance to make the map.

The IRC, created for a once-a-decade redistricting, failed to reach a consensus last year and gave up. Democrats in the Legislature then drew a map that heavily advantaged their own party, before the Court of Appeals rejected it.

After Halligan’s recusal, Renwick — the first woman of color to preside over the State Supreme Court’s Appellate Division, First Judicial Department — now may be the most closely watched judge in the case.

Renwick, an Ivy League-educated Democrat, was appointed to the appellate division in 2008 by Gov. David Paterson. She is a former Legal Aid Society lawyer.

“She’s an excellent judge,” said David Saxe, a former judge who served for several years on the appellate division with Renwick. “She’s industrious. She’s a perfect judge for a recusal.”

Jeff Wice, a professor at New York Law School closely following the case, said Renwick may be friendly to the Democrats’ case, noting that she ruled to send an Assembly mapmaking process back to the IRC in a similar, though somewhat different, case.

“This should be seen as a favorable move for the Democrats,” Wice said of the shakeup. “It might provide Democrats with a safer cushion.”

Still, Saxe said Republicans should feel comfortable with the replacement.

“She’s a fair judge,” Saxe said. “She’s a moderate. I think both sides should be happy.”

The stakes of the battle are raised by the state of the House: Republicans emerged from the midterms with a thin majority, and both parties see New York as potentially pivotal territory in 2024.

Lower courts have split on the question before the Court of Appeals.

Late last year, Justice Peter Lynch of Albany Supreme Court ruled that the commission lacked authority to submit a new map, and that allowing it to do so would damage the stability of the electoral process.

But in a 3-to-2 decision in July, the State Supreme Court’s Appellate Division, Third Judicial Department, ordered the House map redrawn.

Justice Elizabeth Garry wrote that the decision honored the need for a “robust, fair and equitable procedure for the determination of voting districts in New York.”

Court watchers have said they can see the case ultimately going either way. The Court of Appeals is due to hear arguments next month.