Civil rights groups sue Nassau County, legislature over redrawn district map

A contingent of civil rights advocates and progressive groups have filed suit against Nassau County and its GOP-controlled legislature, arguing that its redrawn legislative map violates state law by diluting the influence of Black, Latino and Asian voters.

The lawsuit was filed Wednesday in Nassau County State Supreme Court in Mineola by the New York Civil Liberties Union, American Civil Liberties Union, LatinoJustice PRLDEF, Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, and the Manhattan law firm of Steptoe LLP. 

The suit, which names County Executive Bruce Blakeman, Presiding Officer Howard Kopel (R-Lawrence), Michael Pulitzer, clerk of the legislature, and Board of Elections Commissioners Joseph Kearney and James Scheuerman, contends the map, which was adopted in February 2023, defies the state's John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act and had the “impermissible purpose of favoring Republican candidates for the Legislature.”

“The redistricting plan does not provide fair representation for Nassau County's large and fast-growing Black, Latino and Asian communities,” Perry Grossman, director of the Voting Rights Project at the NYCLU. “The legislature drew a race-blind map, which is a departure from three decades of redistricting practice in Nassau County.”

The lawsuit comes after the groups wrote in a Dec. 14 letter to the county and its 19-member legislature that litigation would commence within 50 days unless the map was changed. The legislature declined to make the suggested changes.

Representatives for Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman and the legislature did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In December, Mary Studdert, spokeswoman for the legislature's Republican majority caucus, said the maps “incorporated feedback from the public’s testimony from over a dozen public hearings, while meeting all legal and constitutional standards, uniting communities of interest and ensuring equal representation for the residents of Nassau County.”

Nassau in 2022 began a series of countywide community meetings to reapportion its legislative districts as part of the decennial redistricting process.

A panel of five Republicans, five Democrats and a nonvoting Republican chairman sent two maps to the legislature because it could not agree on one.

Nassau's Republican majority proposed its own map, adopted by the county legislature along party lines. Republicans hold a 12-7 majority.

While residents of color make up more than one-third of Nassau’s eligible voters, the current map creates four of 19 districts where Black, Latino, and Asian residents constitute a majority of eligible voters, the lawsuit states. 

Nassau’s Asian population rose almost 60% in the last decade. Only one Black candidate has ever been elected in Nassau outside of a majority-minority district; no Latino members are serving in the legislature, and no Asian candidate has ever been elected to the body, the groups said.

“This map unnecessarily 'cracks' and 'packs' Nassau County’s communities of color, suppressing their ability to exercise political power and have a representative governing body,” the lawsuit states “If the Legislature had complied with applicable laws against racial vote dilution and partisan gerrymandering, the redistricting plan would have included six districts, of nineteen total, where eligible Black, Latino, and Asian voters constituted a majority of the population.”

The map places large groups of Black, Latino, and Asian communities in Lakeview, South Valley Stream, Inwood, Freeport and New Hyde Park into predominantly white districts, the suit states. Meanwhile, a sizable and compact Asian community in Western Nassau was split among three separate districts, “denying it any opportunity to influence the outcome of elections,” the suit contends.

In July, the Nassau County Democratic Committee and 20 registered voters challenged the map, alleging it creates districts favoring Republican candidates, limits competition and dilutes the voting power of communities of color.

By Robert Brodsky

robert.brodsky@newsday.com@BrodskyRobert

Robert Brodsky is a breaking news reporter who has worked at Newsday since 2011. He is a Queens College and American University alum.