Nassau legislative map faces another legal challenge

The Nassau County Legislature violated state open records law in failing to disclose the data and analysis used to create its new 2023 legislative boundaries, according to a lawsuit filed Thursday by a voting rights group. 

New York Civil Liberties Union, on behalf of the League of Women Voters of Port Washington-Manhasset, sued the 19-member legislature to gain access to the facts and formula used to redraw the county's voting map.

The legislature's Republican majority hired Sean Trende, an elections analyst at Real Clear Politics, to redraw the map as part of the decennial redistricting process. 

"The lawsuit is intended to force the Nassau Legislature to disclose the data and statistical analysis it relied on in order to adopt a map that for the first time disregards any consideration of race," Perry Grossman, director of the voting rights project at NYCLU, said. "The public is entitled to see the analysis that they [the Republican majority] used in legislative decision-making." 

Mary Studdert, a spokesperson for the legislature's Republican majority, said: “While we believe the claims are without merit, we do not comment on pending litigation.”

Danny Schrafel, a spokesman for the legislature's Democratic minority, declined to comment.

In court papers, NYCLU attorneys say the local League of Women Voters chapter requested information to support assertions that the redistricting plan did not need to include any districts that provide voters of color an opportunity to elect their preferred candidates and was not biased on partisan grounds. 

"Despite numerous requests during the redistricting process to review Mr. Trende’s analyses, the Legislature refused to disclose to the public any details of the analyses beyond cherry-picked excerpts favoring the redistricting plan the Legislature sought to adopt," the complaint said.

In a statement, Michele C. Lamberti, vice president of the League of Women Voters of Port Washington-Manhasset, said the group is "concerned that the enacted redistricting plan may have failed to comply with the Voting Rights Act and the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act of New York which provide protections for communities of color and prohibit partisan gerrymandering.”

The 25-page complaint, filed in state Supreme Court, comes three weeks after the Nassau County Democratic Committee filed a lawsuit accusing the legislature of partisan gerrymandering and asking the court to overturn the map adopted in February.

Republicans have defended the map, saying it creates “fair-fight” districts in Nassau that comply with state and federal voting laws.

The July 27 lawsuit includes 20 voters as plaintiffs, all of whom are Democrats except one who is not aligned with a political party. David L. Mejias, an attorney representing the plaintiffs, said in response to the NYCLU suit: "This is the Republican playbook for rigging elections. Gerrymander the legislative districts in the dark of night and keep the way you went about doing it a secret."

"In the interest of democracy and transparency, the Republicans should stop stonewalling the League of Women Voters," said Mejias, a former Democratic Nassau County legislator.

Grossman said his suit seeking the data and analysis used to create the maps "goes to the heart of the Nassau Democrats' suit." 

Frank X. Moroney, a Republican who served as the nonvoting chairman of the legislative redistricting advisory panel, declined to comment. 

By Candice Ferrette

candice.ferrette@newsday.comcandiceferrette

Candice Ferrette covers Nassau County government and politics on Long Island. She has been a reporter at Newsday since 2011.