Top New York Court Orders New Congressional Districts In Major Win For Democrats
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
The New York State Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that the Democratic-controlled legislature will have the opportunity to approve new congressional district maps ahead of the 2024 election.
The 4-3 decision by the state’s highest court overturns the court-drawn congressional district maps imposed after the legislature’s maps, which heavily favored Democrats, were rejected by a state court in April 2022. The current maps, drawn by a court-ordered special master in May 2022, erased Democrats’ advantages in key districts and forced New York’s delegation of House Democrats into a costly game of musical chairs.
The party ultimately lost four of New York’s U.S. House seats to Republicans in the 2022 election, accounting for all but one of the net losses that enabled the GOP’s takeover of the House.
House Democrats were accordingly pleased with Tuesday’s decision, even as they declined to frame it in explicitly partisan terms.
“Today’s decision is a win for democracy and particularly the people of New York,” Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.), chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said in a statement. “We are eager for the Independent Redistricting Commission to get back to work to create a new, fair congressional map ― through the process New York voters intended.”
House Republicans denounced the decision as a partisan power grab.
“Instead of focusing on policies that appeal to everyday voters, Democrats are trying to cheat their way to power,” said Savannah Viar, a spokesperson for the National Republican Congressional Committee. “We will continue to hold them and their terrible policies ― that have led to an open border, rising crime and rampant inflation ― accountable.”
In seeking to throw out the court-ordered maps, New York Democrats noted that the New York State Constitution gives sole authority in redistricting to an independent redistricting commission and the state legislature, “except to the extent that a court is required to order the adoption of, or changes to, a redistricting plan as a remedy for a violation of law.” So the court’s intervention in the process last year was acceptable only as a temporary measure, to be corrected by a new commission-based redistricting process, Empire State Democrats argued.
The Court of Appeals’ liberal majority sided with the Democrats on that argument. “There is no good argument as to why New Yorkers must be prohibited from ordering the creation of legislative districts through the process the Constitution requires, adopted by the direct vote of the People,” wrote Chief Judge Rowan Wilson in the majority opinion.
The path forward is not so simple. The process now heads to the Independent Redistricting Commission, created through a 2014 constitutional amendment barring partisan gerrymandering, before going to the New York State Legislature.
The constitutional amendment calls for a 10-person commission that is evenly split between Democrats and Republicans, with no provision for a tie-breaking vote. It deadlocked in 2022, leading the Democrat-dominated legislature to draw its own districts.
Most New York politics watchers anticipate a similar outcome.
New York Democrats, led by Gov. Kathy Hochul, will be able to draw new congressional maps after a decision by the state's highest court.
“This ruling could put up to six GOP seats in deeper danger,” predicted Dave Wasserman, senior editor and elections analyst for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, in a post on the social media app X. The six congressional districts, which President Joe Biden carried in 2020, are New York’s 1st, 3rd, 4th, 17th, 19th and 22nd. (The new district lines will not be in effect for the Feb. 13 special election to replace expelled Republican George Santos in New York’s 3rd District, which both parties see as a critical opportunity.)
Getting a more favorable congressional map in New York has taken on new urgency for Democrats in recent months as Republicans tightened their hold on redistricting in red states. After Republicans regained the majority on the North Carolina Supreme Court in 2022, the court overturned a ruling rejecting the Republican legislature’s map as an illegal gerrymander. That decision last April turned three Democratic-held seats in North Carolina into solid Republican districts.
In fact, Democratic lawmakers went to war with New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D), in part because they wanted to make absolutely sure that the chief judge of the Court of Appeals would be as likely as possible to throw out the current congressional map. Democrats in the state Senate blocked the appointment of Justice Hector LaSalle, a moderate, to the position of chief justice in February. Hochul instead promoted Wilson, an existing judge on the court, to the top position, in April.
But in redrawing district boundaries, New York’s Democratic lawmakers will have to adjust to avoid a repeat of their overreach in 2022. Among other moves that were easily painted as violations of the state constitution’s ban on partisan gerrymandering, Democratic lawmakers shoved the liberal Brooklyn neighborhood of Park Slope into the same district as distant Staten Island and created a geographically noncontiguous district linking the North Shore of Long Island to towns on the Westchester County coastline.
More modest moves that would still be to Democrats’ advantage might hold up against renewed judicial scrutiny. For example, the party could make New York’s 22nd District more Democratic by adding Ithaca, a nearby liberal college town. And if the party moves New York’s 17th District southward to include more of Westchester County and less of Putnam and Dutchess counties, that suburban New York City seat could be easier for Democrats to flip.
Even those changes are politically fraught, since they would scramble the math for Democratic primaries in neighboring districts.
Westchester County Executive George Latimer (D) has launched a primary challenge against Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) with the support of pro-Israel donors and voters disappointed in Bowman’s outspoken criticism of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza. Latimer admitted to City & State, though, that any redistricting process which the district to include less of Westchester and more of the Bronx would mean that he is “not gonna win that race.”
What’s more, Latimer’s mere decision to run in the primary has injected new controversy into the workings of New York’s Independent Redistricting Commission. Westchester Deputy County Executive Ken Jenkins (D), Latimer’s second in command, serves as chair of the Independent Redistricting Commission. Latimer conceded that he spoke to Jenkins about redistricting “a couple times,” but his campaign later clarified that he has not discussed the matter “extensively” with Jenkins.
The New York Working Families Party, which is backing Bowman, on Tuesday wrote on X that Jenkins’ presence on the commission a “clear conflict of interest.”
“Commissioner Jenkins must recuse himself to ensure a fair process,” the group said.
