New York Attorney General Letitia James and Governor Kathy Hochul on Friday filed an amicus brief in support of having new congressional district lines drawn after the current ones helped Republicans flip the House of Representatives in the 2022 midterm elections.
The brief was filed in the Appellate Division, Third Department. In the filing, the state’s top Democrats maintain that, while maps redrawn by special master Jonathan Cervas last year — the result of a court challenge to the state’s Independent Redistricting Commission’s (IRC) lines — may have been appropriate for the 2022 election, they can and should be better.
“I am committed to protecting the rights of all New Yorkers to fully participate in our electoral system,” the governor said in a statement. “We are urging the court to support the Constitutionally-protected process in order to ensure accountability and fairness for New York voters.”
After an already prolonged and convoluted redistricting process for the Assembly, state Senate and New York’s U.S. House of Representatives last year, the Democrat-controlled state legislature took over the map-making process after the 10-member IRC — made up of an even number of Democrat and Republican appointees — twice failed to agree on a set of lines to send Albany lawmakers.
The Congressional and state Senate maps drawn by the legislature, excluding the Assembly lines, were then promptly challenged in Steuben County Supreme Court and were ultimately thrown out by New York’s Court of Appeals. Given the short timeframe ahead of the 2022 election, the lines were then reconfigured by a court-appointed special master — Cervas, and those lines are currently set to remain in effect until the decade’s end.
In their amicus brief, Hochul and James cite the State Constitution in asserting the state Legislature must have the opportunity to remedy electoral maps found to be invalid by a court. With time on their side this go around, in the absence of an upcoming election, the pols are urging the Appellate Division to reverse the lower court order rejecting the voters’ claim and to order the IRC to draw and submit a new congressional map as required by the Constitution — refueling the fight to redraw Congressional and state legislative borders.
“Our state’s Constitution makes it clear that an independent body, with participation from the general public, is charged with drawing maps for Congressional districts. Relying on a process with no accountability and with limited time for public input is not how we engage the public and ensure their interests are addressed throughout this process,” James said in a statement. “I am committed to ensuring our electoral process is as transparent as possible and that we follow the process outlined in our Constitution. New Yorkers deserve free and fair elections, and to have a say in how their communities will be represented in Congress.”
