ALBANY \u2014 Redistricting is the talk of the town in the state capital, again.<\/p>\n
Albany\u2019s leading Democrats, including Gov. Kathleen C. Hochul and the Senate and Assembly leaders, are discussing a plan to amend the state constitution and return the power to draw congressional maps to the state legislature.<\/p>\n
At the behest of congressional Democrats including House Minority Leader Hakeem S. Jeffries, D-Brooklyn, states run by Democrats across the country have been looking to redraw their congressional maps in an attempt to add more safe Democratic seats. It\u2019s a response to efforts in GOP-led states to redraw their own maps to add more Republican seats.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, U.S.Rep. Joseph D. Morelle, D-Rochester, paid the state Capitol a visit and met with Hochul and legislative leaders to discuss redrawing the state\u2019s maps. In a press conference alongside Hochul, Morelle said the issue is \u201cexistential\u201d and framed the push to redraw New York\u2019s maps as a pro-democracy effort.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe didn\u2019t start this fight. We didn\u2019t start it in Texas, we didn\u2019t start it in Louisiana. But we intend to finish it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Redrawing New York\u2019s maps is no simple task. In 2014, voters authorized a constitutional amendment that implemented an independent redistricting commission that was to be tasked with drawing congressional and state legislative districts moving forward. The commission\u2019s first chance to do so was in 2021, after the decennial census and when all other states underwent their own regular redistricting processes.<\/p>\n
The commission\u2019s bipartisan membership failed to agree on one set of maps, and through a litany of court challenges and legislative efforts to draw maps, the state Court of Appeals eventually ruled that a special master should draw New York\u2019s maps, resulting in the congressional districts in place today.<\/p>\n
To change the process, lawmakers would have to approve an amendment to the state constitution twice; once this year and again next year, before putting the question on the ballot in 2027 when it would need a majority of voters to support it.<\/p>\n
The state\u2019s Democrats have long been critical of the court decision that established the current maps, and on Tuesday Senate Deputy Majority Leader Mike Gianaris, D-Queens, said the decision was \u201ccorrupt\u201d and that the power to draw congressional maps should be returned to the legislature. And he said that doing so wouldn\u2019t violate the spirit of the state\u2019s existing guidelines for congressional maps.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do think that reclaiming the legislature\u2019s proper role and drawing these lines would allow for different maps to exist that are not necessarily violating the principles that we have,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
If this all goes to plan, the state\u2019s maps would be redrawn in time for the 2028 election. Morelle said that while some states have moved to redraw their districts for the election this year, not every state is moving on that same timeline.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of the states that could be affected in the south may not do it until 2028, this is a longer term proposition,\u201d Morelle said.<\/p>\n
The redistricting fight started last summer when Republicans in Texas redrew their maps to give the GOP an edge there. When the Texas maps were changed, Democrats in California and Virginia moved to redraw their own maps for their party\u2019s advantage. The result was essentially a wash \u2014 the GOP gains in Texas were tempered by expected losses in those states.<\/p>\n
But last week, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Louisiana\u2019s maps were illegally racially gerrymandered, throwing out part of the Voting Rights Act that sought to protect majority-minority districts in states with significant minority populations. Now, Louisiana and a number of other southern states are looking to redraw their maps in a way that could destroy most of the minority-majority districts, a move that Morelle and state leaders in New York have said would essentially disenfranchise millions of Black and Latin voters.<\/p>\n
Tweaking New York\u2019s maps could net Democrats up to three more seats in Congress.<\/p>\n
But New York\u2019s Republican lawmakers aren\u2019t buying Democrats\u2019 arguments.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s completely ridiculous, their reasoning is a complete lie,\u201d Assembly Minority Leader Ed P. Ra, R-Garden City, said. \u201cThe reason is that they got caught gerrymandering our districts back in 2022, and they want another shot at it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ra said he has a problem with Jeffries getting directly involved in the state\u2019s decision making on this issue.<\/p>\n
\u201cHakeem should go run back for his seat in the Assembly if he wants to dictate what goes on in our state,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALBANY \u2014 Redistricting is the talk of the town in the state capital, again. Albany\u2019s leading Democrats, including…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58770,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[144],"tags":[485,23918,50,35254,23917],"class_list":["post-58769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-hakeem-jeffries","tag-hakeem-jeffries","tag-nationandworld","tag-news","tag-statenews","tag-top_stories"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116525197022475762","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58769\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}