Deadline Nears For NY Panel to Redraw Congressional Lines

A bipartisan commission tasked with redrawing New York’s congressional districts has until Tuesday to agree on new boundaries — or risk having Democratic lawmakers seize control over a reapportionment process voters hoped would minimize gerrymandering.

The redistricting commission has been mired in partisanship, and many have lost hope it can come up with a bipartisan proposal in its first outing since New York voters established it in 2014.

While Republicans control redistricting across huge swaths of the country, New York is a rare place where Democrats wield extraordinary power over the redrawing of congressional lines. How the state carves out its congressional districts could decide control over the U.S. House.

Even as the Empire State will see its representation in the House drop from 27 to 26 under the latest Census maps, Democrats could potentially gain seats in the New York delegation.

The commission has until the Tuesday deadline to come up with new maps agreeable to state lawmakers, who earlier this month rejected the commission’s most recent proposals. That was expected, considering the commission submitted two sets of plans — one favoring Democrats, and the other Republicans — underscoring deep divides.

The increasingly likely outcome is that Democratic lawmakers, who have supermajorities in both legislative chambers, will get to draw their own maps — which Republicans charge has always been their rival party’s game plan.

A federal court drew lines the last time around, after the Assembly and state Senate failed to break an impasse over new lines. At the time, Republicans controlled New York’s Senate.

Republicans expect the new maps to land in court yet again.

The stakes couldn’t be any higher. If Republicans can wrest the gavel from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, it would thwart Biden’s policy agenda heading into 2024.

Democrats hold a 19-8 advantage in the state’s 27-member congressional delegation.

Reps. Tom Reed and John Katko, both upstate Republicans, have said they wouldn’t seek reelection.

Republicans concede that the loss of two incumbents could offset some expected Republican gains elsewhere. Republicans worry that Democrats could gerrymander their way into gaining as many as four or five seats.

The shift in the state’s population from rural to urban is especially problematic for Republicans. That means the state’s power center is further gravitating toward New York City, a bastion for national liberalism, which saw its population surge 629,000 new residents to 8.8 million.

That could dilute Republican influence in the country’s most populous megapolis and possibly erode GOP control of districts on Long Island and Staten Island.

“There’s many instances where they’ve ignored the input that was given to them during public hearings. They gerrymandered lots of different communities of color seemingly in an attempt to protect incumbents,” said Asher Ross, who directs a redistricting advocacy campaign called “Mapping our Future” for the New York Immigration Coalition.

Ross said Democrats’ attempt to weaken U.S. Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, a Republican from Staten Island, would come at the expense of a largely Latino and Asian American community in Brooklyn that could wind up in what is now her district.

The 2014 voter referendum banned partisan gerrymandering, and said the redistricting maps could not favor or disfavor political parties or candidates.

New Yorkers could file lawsuits arguing the maps are tainted by partisan gerrymandering in state court but would face a high bar, according to New York Law School professor Jeffrey Wice.

“It’s very difficult to challenge redistricting plans in New York because courts have provided a lot of deference to state legislatively drawn maps,” Wice said.