New York’s Congressional House map returns to court as Democrats challenge lines

The long-running legal battle over New York’s congressional lines returned to court on Thursday, as Democratic voters pushed to dismantle the map used in last year’s House races.

New York’s current map, drawn by an independent expert in Pennsylvania, is the product of a court ruling last year rejecting a map drawn by Albany’s ruling Democrats as an unlawful gerrymander.

When Republicans flipped four House seats in New York in the midterm elections, Democrats grumbled that the finalized map was at least partially to blame.

Now, an appeals court is considering a challenge to the map used in the midterms, with Democrats hopeful they can deploy the judiciary to swing the House lines back — at least somewhat — in their favor before 2024.

The appeals court, the state Supreme Court’s Appellate Division of the 3rd Judicial Department, heard arguments Thursday after a lower court judge ruled against the challengers in September.

Jeff Wice, a professor at New York Law School who is closely following the case, said he thought three judges on the five-judge appeals panel seemed friendly to the challengers’ case on Thursday.

“But it’s often hard to read the tea leaves,” Wice said.

No matter how the appeals court rules, the case is expected to ultimately land in New York’s top court, the Court of Appeals. The top court’s composition has tilted to the left since last year, when it threw out the Democrats’ original map.

The challengers do not aim to return mapmaking powers to the Democratic lawmakers in Albany whose gerrymander was rejected. Rather, they are asking for the state’s Independent Redistricting Commission to get another crack at making the map.

Last year, the bipartisan commission, created for a once-a-decade redistricting, failed to reach a consensus and gave up . Democrats in Albany then drew and approved their own district lines before a GOP lawsuit foiled their plans.

The new case has been brought on behalf of voters by the Elias Law Group, a Washington law firm that supports the Democratic Party. The firm’s lawyers have argued in court papers that future elections “should occur under plans adopted pursuant to the constitutionally mandated process for the IRC.”

They missed on their first swing. Justice Peter Lynch of Albany Supreme Court ruled in September that the IRC lacks the authority to submit a new map, and that allowing it to do so would unsettle the Constitutional aim of delivering stability to the electoral process.

Lynch said in his decision that allowing the IRC another opportunity could wreak “havoc on the electoral process” and that “directing the IRC to submit a second plan would be futile!”

And so the voters appealed.

Court watchers say they can see the case, Hoffmann v. New York State Independent Redistricting Commission, going either way. The case itself hinges on an ambiguous provision of the state Constitution.

The Court of Appeals jurist who wrote the opinion voiding last year’s Democratic gerrymander, Chief Judge Janet DiFiore, resigned in the summer and was replaced by a liberal new chief judge, Rowan Wilson.

Wilson and two other judges dissented in last year’s case. Another liberal judge, Caitlin Halligan, joined the seven-member court this spring.

“I’m not sure that what the Court of Appeals did previously is necessarily going to dictate what the court will do this time,” said Vincent Bonventre, an Albany Law School professor. “This one’s very much up in the air.”

Another factor adding to the mystery: 2024 is fast approaching, and judges on the Court of Appeals might be resistant to resetting the process so close to the next election season.

At a Thursday news conference, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, a Brooklyn Democrat and the House minority leader, excoriated the current map as a “partisan map drawn by an unelected out-of-town special master signed off on by a right-wing judge.”

But Jeffries added that he would respect whatever decision emerges from the litigation.

The stakes of the outcome could carry significant implications for 2024, as Democrats work to pry back control of the House. Republicans emerged from the midterm elections with a flimsy five-seat majority in the chamber.

Jay Jacobs, chairman of the state Democratic Party, said by phone Thursday that the current lines seem unfair to Democrats and make elections “particularly difficult” for his party.

“I think we have a great case,” Jacobs said, but he added that Democrats are not relying on it for 2024 success. “We will compete, and we will win, whatever the lines are.”