The decision could delay the New York primaries by up to two months and is likely a hammer for Democrats’ hopes for national restructuring, which have relied heavily on their ability to run the state of New York to maximize numbers. of seats they could win in the US House of Representatives. The state appellate court said the Democratic-led legislature did not have the power to redesign the congressional and state Senate charters after an independent restructuring committee tasked with creating the new charters failed to reach a consensus. The judges also said lawmakers produced the congressional charts in favor of the Democrats, in violation of a 2014 constitutional amendment aimed at eliminating political games in redistribution. The Court of Appeal handed over the power to draw new area maps to an expert, known as the head of a special court, instead of the Legislature. “Early judicial intervention is necessary and appropriate to ensure the right of the people to free and fair elections,” the court said in a statement issued by Chief Justice Janet DiFiore. The decision did not set a deadline for the approval of new maps. But the judges said they were sending the matter to a lower state court, which “will adopt constitutional charters with all due diligence.” It will be “probably necessary,” DiFiore wrote, to postpone the congressional and Senate by-elections from June 28 to August, to give time for the maps to be redesigned, and for candidates and election officials to adjust . The state election council said it did not anticipate that the date of the qualifiers would change for other races, including the governor and the assembly. The decision comes as a major blow to Democrats in their fight to prevent Republicans from regaining control of the US House of Representatives. New York City is set to lose a seat in Congress in 2021 because of new census data from the 2020 census. . Republicans currently hold eight of the state’s 27 seats. Democrats hoped a New York-friendly restructuring map in New York could help offset the expected losses in other states where Republicans control the state government. “While we are disappointed with the Court’s ruling, we remain confident of the Democrats winning the polls this November,” said Jay Jacobs, chairman of the Democratic Party of New York. Former New York Republican John Fasso called it a “landmark decision” and told reporters by telephone Wednesday night that the decision was a signal to future lawmakers to follow the letter of the voter restructuring law passed by voters. . “It will force bipartisan co-operation and that is what the people voted for,” he said. According to a process that went through the voters in 2014, the new New York area maps were supposed to have been designed by an independent commission. But this body, made up of equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans, could not agree on a set of maps. The Democrat-controlled Legislature then intervened and created its own maps, which were quickly signed by Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat. The appellate panel, made up of judges appointed entirely by Democratic governors, sided with Republican plaintiffs who argued that the legislature had bypassed the process set out in the 2014 reforms, including a provision in the state constitution that prohibits profit. “The legislature responded by creating and enacting maps in an opaque manner controlled solely by the ruling political party – doing exactly what it would have done if the 2014 constitutional reforms had never been approved,” DiFiore wrote. Four out of seven judges in the Court of Appeals participated in the majority, with one-fifth agreeing that the Senate and Congress maps were unconstitutional for procedural reasons. Democrat lawyers argued that the Legislature had the legal capacity to create its own charters when the restructuring committee failed to reach a consensus. Democrats also said their maps reflected population shifts and united similar geographical and cultural communities, separated by previous rounds of manipulation. However, the judges tasked the Democrats with drawing up maps that reduced the number of competing districts and asking the court to “cancel” the 2014 reforms. In the majority, DiFiore said that support for the contaminated process would only encourage party members involved in the Independent Restructuring Committee process to avoid consensus in the future, “thus allowing the legislature to intervene and create new maps simply by creating a deadlock in any stage of the IRC process “. Two lower courts had also ruled that the maps were unconstitutional and gave the Legislature April 30 to draw up new maps or leave the work to an expert appointed by the court. This deadline has now been set aside. Candidates, meanwhile, have already started campaigning in the new constituencies, although they are not sure if these constituencies will continue to exist until the start of voting.
Associated Press writer Nicholas Riccardi in Denver contributed to this report.
