N.Y.’s Redistricting Long Fight is Over
By John Faso

Finally.

After a three year long fight, the New York State Legislature has enacted a new map for the state’s 26 congressional districts. This action ends the redistricting process after extensive legal battles which culminated in two decisions by New York’s highest court, the Court of Appeals.

Threatened with yet another court fight, the Democrats’ supermajorities in the state Legislature, adopted a final map which does not materially differ from the map drawn by a neutral, court-appointed expert in 2022.

The state Constitution’s redistricting amendment adopted by voters in 2014 was intended to greatly reduce the Legislature’s power over redistricting by establishing the bipartisan Independent Redistricting Commission (IRC) with primary responsibility for drafting legislative and congressional maps. That amendment also contained the nation’s strongest state prohibition against partisan gerrymandering.

State Democrats had other ideas and sought at every turn to undermine the 2014 amendment. Initially, Democrats refused to even fund the IRC, and it took a lawsuit filed by the Government Justice Center in 2021 to get the IRC up and running.