State's Highest Court Tosses Gerrymandered Congressional, State Senate District Lines

The New York State Court of Appeals on Wednesday, April 27, ruled that Democrats had violated the State Constitution when they unilaterally redrew state and congressional districts, resulting in gerrymandered district boundaries that gave an unfair advantage to their candidates.

In a split vote, the state’s highest court ordered a nonpartisan special master appointed by a lower court to redraw the district lines, which will directly affect the midterm congressional elections on the East End.

The court’s ruling is expected to alter the Democrats’ chances to secure additional congressional seats in the midterm elections statewide and hold onto their majority in the State Senate.

State Supreme Court Justice Patrick F. McAllister of Steuben County, who presided over the original case, on Friday ordered congressional and State Senate primaries postponed until August 23. That ruling will force candidates to recalibrate their efforts in newly defined districts.

Because the district lines for the State Assembly were not challenged, primary votes for those seats are still expected to take place in June, although the State Legislature has the option of consolidating all primaries on one day.

Last week’s Court of Appeals ruling, which cannot be appealed, also overturned an earlier Appellate Division decision that said Democrats were within their rights in drawing new district lines after a nonpartisan commission, established by an amendment to the State Constitution in 2014 and made up of equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans, was deadlocked and unable to complete the task.

But the Appellate Division ruled that the Democrats had overstepped the line into partisan gerrymandering when they created districts that would give their party an unfair advantage in 22 of the 26 state congressional districts. Democrats currently hold 19 of the 27 seats. New York has lost a seat following the 2020 Census results.

Republicans filed suit in Steuben County, and in early April, McAllister ruled Democrats did not have the constitutional authority to issue the maps on their own and tossed out both the State Senate and congressional maps.

Democrats appealed that decision, and last week, a five-judge Appellate Court panel, in a 3-2 vote, partially overruled McAllister and determined that Democrats did, in fact, have the right to redraw the maps. The court reinstated the State Senate districts but agreed with McAllister that the Democrats had illegally gerrymandered the congressional districts.

The matter went to the state’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, which heard arguments on Tuesday, April 26, and issued its ruling the following afternoon.

State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., who voted for the redistricting, has conceded the new maps “were far from perfect.” But he said the 4-3 vote by the Court of Appeals that revealed “a very divided court” had effectively thrown everything up in the air.

“The theory was that if the commission didn’t act, it would default back to the legislature,” Thiele said.

The special master appointed by McAllister to redraw the lines has a May 24 deadline to do so, making it impossible to hold June primaries, he said. Assembly districts were not included in the court case, so the scheduled primary for those seats will be held on June 28 — for now. Thiele said it was still possible those districts could be challenged in a separate case.

When the state amended its constitution to create the redistricting commission in 2014, there was a Republican majority in the Senate and a Democratic majority in the Assembly.

“The view back then was: ‘You take care of yours, and we’ll take care of ours,’” Thiele said, adding that, in today’s hyper-partisan political climate, compromise on something as important as district lines is next to impossible.

Suffolk County Legislator Bridget Fleming of Noyac, who is seeking the Democratic nomination to run for the 1st Congressional District seat now held by GOP gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin, said before the ruling that if the district lines were thrown out and the primary postponed, “it would be an unfortunate drain of time and resources,” but she added that she would continue her efforts as if nothing changed.

“We are going to continue to reach out to communities that are within the new district lines,” she said. “We have plenty of work to do to make sure we are able to get our message to voters throughout the district.”

Republican Nicholas J. LaLota, who has been endorsed by GOP leaders in the 1st Congressional District, said the legal battle over the district boundaries was “much more about the voters than the candidates.”

He criticized Democrats for splitting up communities that should have been in the same district in a bid to improve their own chances for election.

“They should have made those districts fairer,” he said. “If correcting that injustice means that candidates like me have to campaign in new and different neighborhoods, so be it.”