NY Court of Appeals to hear House map case: What to know
The fate of New York’s House map is due to be considered Wednesday by the state’s top court, which is reviewing a challenge to congressional district lines drawn by an independent expert and used in last year’s midterm elections.
The seven-member Court of Appeals is set to hear arguments in the case at 1 p.m. in Buffalo. Oral arguments will be streamed.
Democrats, hoping to reverse congressional midterm losses in New York, brought the court challenge in an effort to dismantle the current district lines, which they have suggested hampered them in 2022.
With New York seen as potentially pivotal territory in determining which party controls Congress, the case could have profound implications. Still, it is unclear if a Democratic win at the Court of Appeals would guarantee new maps that skew in the Democrats’ favor.
Democrats have pushed for the state’s Independent Redistricting Commission to get another chance to make the map in time for the 2024 elections. The independent commission, convened for once-a-decade redistricting, imploded in its effort to make the map for 2022. The commission, which has members appointed by both parties, was intended as a bipartisan solution to the mapmaking process, but it failed to reach consensus and gave up.
Republicans have fought the court challenge, saying that Democrats want to rig the lines in their favor. The GOP flipped four seats in New York in the midterms.
An independent expert in Pennsylvania drew the current map after the commission’s map-drawing process failed and a Democratic-led effort by the state Legislature to draw the lines in their own party’s favor was rejected in court last year.
Lower courts have split on the question of whether the map used in the midterms should be replaced for 2024. Court watchers have said they can see the Court of Appeals ruling either way.
Last year, the Court of Appeals voted 4-to-3 to reject the House map drawn by Democratic lawmakers. But the case is different this time around, and so is the Court of Appeals.
The Court of Appeals jurist who wrote the opinion voiding the Democrats’ map, Chief Judge Janet DiFiore, resigned last year, opening a slot on the court.
DiFiore was replaced on the court by the liberal Judge Caitlin Halligan, who was appointed by Gov. Hochul, a Democrat who supported the Democratic-drawn map last year.
But Halligan will not have a say in the case. She has recused herself, citing a close personal relationship with an attorney or party in the case, according to the court.
After Halligan’s recusal, Dianne Renwick — the presiding justice on the State Supreme Court’s appellate division panel in Manhattan— took her place 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.
Now, she may be the most closely watched judge in one of the most important redistricting cases in the country.
