Court of Appeals orders New York congressional district maps to be redrawn

ALBANY – New York’s top court on Tuesday ordered the state’s congressional map to be redrawn, giving Democrats a huge win in a case that could impact the balance of power in Congress.

The state Court of Appeals, in a 4-3 decision, said districts drawn just last year by a court-appointed specialist were a short-term fix and now can be discarded. 

“The existing judicially drawn congressional districts are limited to the 2022 election,” Chief Judge Rowan Wilson wrote for the majority. 

The court, agreeing with a Democratic-driven lawsuit, said the map-making process should begin again with the state’s bipartisan redistricting panel while giving the State Legislature the final say, as per the state constitution. 

Wilson said the redistricting panel must produce a new map proposal for New York's 26 congressional districts no later than Feb. 28. The Legislature could accept or reject the plan and, eventually, vote to approve a map of its own devising.

With the Democrats holding overwhelming control of the Legislature, this gives the party the potential power to tweak lines to make swing districts that they lost in 2022 — especially on Long Island and in the Hudson Valley — more favorable to their candidates.

Flipping just a handful of seats could prove crucial in a narrowly divided Congress.

The ruling was the latest seismic Court of Appeals decision impacting New York's now tortured redistricting process.

Back in 2014, voters approved a constitutional amendment requiring an "Independent Redistricting Commission" — five Republicans, five Democrats — to produce a map for the Legislature's review. The Legislature voted down the first proposal and the commission failed to produce a second one per state law — amid trading accusations of purposeful stalling.

The Legislature drew and approved its own map — which could have helped Democrats flip up to six seats in New York. Republicans sued, claiming process violations and illegal gerrymandering.

Last year, the Court of Appeals — under a more conservative chief judge in Janet DiFiore — agreed in a 4-3 ruling, sending the case back to the upstate Republican judge who first presided over the lawsuit. He handed it off to a "special master" to draw districts for 2022.

Republicans won 11 of New York's 26 seats, including flipping two on Long Island.

Eventually, Democrats sued, saying the special master was a quick fix needed because of pending elections and wasn't in accordance with the state constitution. Republicans contended redistricting is a once-a-decade process and the Legislature and commission missed their chance.

This time, with DiFiore no longer on the bench, the majority agreed with the Democrats.

Referring to the 2022 decision, Wilson said concluding the court-ordered maps were to be place until the next Census "would run afoul of the Constitution." Further, he said it "cannot be read to hold that courts may create decade-long redistrictings."

"We are holding the IRC and Legislature do what the Constitution demands and will do so as often as necessary to secure compliance with its mandate," Wilson wrote.

Wilson and the minority, spearheaded by Judge Anthony Cannataro, each referenced the maneuvering and failures of the IRC in 2022. But Wilson said that if the court does nothing, it will "allow the IRC to defeat the Constitution."

"Reduced to its essence, the dissent's ... arguments are that we should not pursue the IRC process because it will never work," Wilson wrote. "Indeed, if we allow the IRC's lack of compliance to stand, we would incentivize the same conduct that deadlocked the IRC and led to court-ordered redistricting."

In a sharply worded dissent, Cannataro said in Tuesday's ruling "politics triumphs over free and fair elections."

He said the ruling "strictly curtails the constitutional authority of the judiciary" to ever step in and "remedy future legislative overreach," especially on redistricting matters.

"Short of the complete elimination of judicial review, a legislature determined to enact gerrymandered maps could not have asked for a more favorable ruling than they have received," Cannataro wrote. 

More pointedly, he referred to DiFiore's departure in writing: "The majority is able to reach this result for one reason and one reason only — because the composition of the court has changed."

Wilson was replaced as an associate judge by Caitlin Halligan — but she had recused herself from this case because of ties to a lawyer involved. Wilson exercised an option he didn't have to: "Vouching" in a seventh judge to hear the case, appellate Judge Dianne Renwick, a Democrat.

"She was the deciding vote," said Vincent Bonventre, an Albany Law School professor who studies the top court.

The majority, he said, concluded "the role for the courts in redistricting is supposed to be very limited — the courts are not supposed to be the one carving up the state's districts."

Predictably, Democrats called the decision a victory for voters while Republicans accused them of cheating to jettison the 2022 map. 

“The New York State Court of Appeals has affirmed that the current Congressional district lines drawn by an unelected, out-of-town special master undercut the will of New York voters in the 2022 midterm election," said Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-Brooklyn), leader of House Democrats. 

However, Rep. Michael Lawler (R-Pearl River), one of several freshman Republicans who won under the 2022 congressional map, said, "This politically motivated decision is just the beginning of this process, not the end. As Albany and Washington Democrats seek to gerrymander the congressional lines in the coming weeks, there will undoubtedly be further legal action."

By Yancey Roy

yancey.roy@newsday.com@yanceyroy