Fight over NYS congressional districts is just getting started

ALBANY — Now that New York has joined the nationwide rush to redraw congressional lines mid-decade, Democrats in the State Legislature are determined not to repeat the failures of the past.

In 2021, voters across the state soundly rejected a Democratic-backed plan that would have allowed them to gerrymander the state’s congressional districts.

Although a vote on the Democrats' current push to redraw the lines mid-decade is still 17 months away, both Republicans and Democrats are preparing for a long battle to convince voters they are in the right.

State Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D-Yonkers) said Democrats would have a different approach than in 2021, when the party was outspent by Republicans in engaging voters.

"I think the lessons learned are simply that you can't assume people know what it is you're doing, and you can't assume that if you do nothing, things will happen the way you want them," she said during a news conference Thursday.

A proposal that passed the State Legislature in the final days of the legislative session allows state Democrats to approve new maps with a simple majority vote and removes a ban on maps drawn to benefit a political party. It also says that if the maps are successfully challenged in court, they go back to the legislature for changes.

Democrats hope that eventual new district lines could help them pick up as many as four seats, including ones on Long Island and in the Hudson Valley. Democrats currently hold 19 of New York's 26 seats.

New York’s redistricting push differs from other states. States like Alabama and Louisiana have moved quickly, redrawing maps that erase districts where the majority of voters are minorities.

But New York’s process is more deliberate. First, state legislators must pass for a second time a proposal overhauling the state’s redistricting process during next year’s legislative session to put it on the November 2027 ballot.

Then the real battle will begin.

Both parties are expected to spend millions of dollars to convince voters they are in the right, said Jeffrey Wice, a professor at New York Law School and director of the New York Elections, Census, and Redistricting Institute. That need will be compounded by a change in the election timetable that will have fewer offices on the ballot.

"Next year is the first year when we're not going to be having traditionally Republican-leaning suburbs and upstate counties voting for local office, so both parties are going to need to put out an extra special effort to turn out the vote," he said.

New district lines

If voters pass the measure, it will allow state Democrats to redraw the lines ahead of the 2028 elections.

Any lines drawn by the legislature would only remain in effect for the 2028 and 2030 elections. The state’s Independent Redistricting Commission would have to submit maps based on new census data by Jan. 15, 2032.

If the state’s redistricting push fails, an extra three to four seats represented by Republicans could make the difference for control of the House of Representatives.

Republicans across the state have protested Democrats’ push to gerrymander the state’s congressional districts.

Former Rep. John Faso, an upstate Republican, who advised state Republicans during the last redistricting battle, argued Democrats have been trying to undo the state’s Independent Redistricting Commission, which is charged with overseeing drawing congressional lines, since it was created in 2014.

Democrats have been critical of the commission, saying it is an unwieldy creation of former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and Senate Republicans, who controlled the House at that time.

"It would turn all the power back to the legislature, and worse, they would eliminate the ban on partisan gerrymandering," Faso said. "What’s really going on here, this is a power play to cement one-party rule here in New York State."

Nationwide battle

Democrats have pointed to Republican efforts to create more favorable district maps across the South, amid a nationwide redistricting fight for competitive advantage in the U.S. House.

Louisiana joined Florida, Tennessee and Alabama in drawing new congressional maps that reduce the number of districts currently controlled by Democrats in the wake of a U.S. Supreme Court decision that weakened the Voting Rights Act.

Meanwhile, California and Virginia, which are controlled by Democrats, are making similar moves.

Last week, state Democrats took another step to ensure they can redraw congressional lines to their advantage in the middle of the decade.

Democratic legislators passed a second proposed constitutional amendment that will allow them to write the language that would appear on the ballot for voters, rather than the state Board of Elections.

The board has been criticized in the past for ballot proposals that are unclear or result in voter confusion.

"I just think it gives the legislature, I'd say, more of an input in designing the language, that's really basically what it does," said Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D-Bronx).

Heastie made it clear state Democrats wanted to push the envelope just as far as Republicans elsewhere had.

"I'm concerned about Republicans trying to wipe out Black members of Congress," Heastie said. "I'm concerned about a lot of things, but I think this thing about asking New York to play fair while everybody else is, you know, is playing ruthless. I'm going to play fair based on how other people play."