Late last week, in what’s arguably the country’s most consequential redistricting case currently being deliberated, an appeals court in Albany sided with Democrats in their effort to get a redistricting do-over that would help Dems in New York and counterbalance some of the worst red-state gerrymanders across the country. The five-judge panel held that the once-in-a-decade redistricting process, bungled so profoundly by the state’s Democrat-dominated government in 2022, can start over from scratch, returning the process to the state Legislature, where Democrats maintain supermajority control. Critically, the composition of the Court of Appeals—the state’s highest court, which will eventually have to hear the case—has shifted in the past two years, such that it’s likely any Democratic-led redistricting effort will be upheld. There is now every expectation that that will allow for new districts to be drawn and implemented before the all-important 2024 elections.
“In granting this petition, we return the matter to its constitutional design. Accordingly, we direct the I.R.C. to commence its duties forthwith,” presiding Judge Elizabeth Garry wrote in the majority opinion, a reference to the Independent Redistricting Commission. The decision is expected to be appealed quickly to the Court of Appeals, where it will serve as the first very real test of the chamber’s brand-new progressive majority.
In addition to offering a road to new Democratic-leaning congressional seats in 2024, the decision marks a huge step toward the state party’s digging out from under the disastrous legacy of Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo. After nearly three full terms in the state’s most powerful chair, Cuomo’s most profound and lasting legacy has been marked by his decision to pack the Court of Appeals with conservatives who were loyal to him personally. Together, they formed a four-member majority bloc, voting together almost exclusively. His successor, Gov. Kathy Hochul, has since replaced one of those Cuomo-appointed judges, breaking the bloc’s power.
No decision of the Cuomo conservative bloc was more consequential than its intervention into the state’s redistricting process, where it did Republicans a gargantuan favor, throwing out maps that were favorable to Democrats, and then stripping the Democratic-dominated Legislature of its constitutional responsibility to draw maps altogether. Instead, the court handed that responsibility over to an independent special master named Jonathan Cervas, an out-of-state nonpartisan wonk who carved up New York’s districts in a manner that directly helped Republicans flip four seats. In the process, Cervas’ maps, with the blessing of the conservative appeals court majority, delivered almost the entirety of Republicans’ congressional majority in the current Congress.
In the aftermath of that decision, Democrats filed a suit, paid for by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, contesting that outcome, arguing that those maps were meant to be temporary, and asking the courts to return the issue to the bipartisan commission to complete its work. Partisan gerrymandering, owing to a Cuomo-backed 2014 constitutional amendment, is ostensibly outlawed in the state. But the Legislature still has final say over what the maps look like after the Independent Redistricting Commission offers its first effort, a fact Cuomo’s judicial junta had no trouble overlooking.
If Thursday’s ruling is upheld by the state’s highest court, both parties believe that Democrats could conceivably hammer out new district lines that conform to the state’s legal standards and still make reelection almost impossible for incumbent freshman Republicans like Reps. Mike Lawler and Marc Molinaro in the Hudson Valley, or Anthony D’Esposito and George Santos in Long Island. National Democrats have been very vocal about their desire to flip at least four, and possibly five, seats in New York, the state that produced the party’s biggest embarrassments on Election Day last November. They’ve already committed tens of millions of dollars to doing so, independent of where the district lines are drawn.
The possible triumph would be huge for New York Democrats and national Democrats as well, and a major step toward fixing the lasting damage of the Cuomo regime.
Cuomo’s personal court-packing initiative, and the massive Republican benefit that came from it—no accident, of course, given Cuomo’s embrace of Republicans in Albany during his time in office—drew comparisons to what national Republicans accomplished on the Supreme Court.
But the bloc also came undone quickly, not long after Cuomo resigned amid a flurry of misconduct and ethics violations. Despite voting together in 96 of 98 cases in the 2022 term, the court majority, which looked to be set until at least 2025, abruptly crumbled. Chief judge, former Republican, and Cuomo loyalist Janet DiFiore announced a surprise departure from the position in summer 2022, in curious coincidence with an ethics investigation into her interference in a disciplinary hearing, opening up a new top judge seat.
That was a godsend for Democrats at state and national levels, one that Cuomo’s former lieutenant, Hochul, nearly bungled herself. To replace the departing chief judge, Hochul nominated Hector LaSalle, whose conservative record made him an enemy of the state’s unions and the very same pro-choice women’s groups who had helped drag Hochul’s campaign over the finish line just a few weeks prior. State Senate Democrats managed to down the nomination over fears that LaSalle would act like DiFiore on crucial issues, including redistricting.
After Hochul threatened to sue her own party’s Senate caucus over its refusal to seat her nominee—she even went so far as to retain counsel for that purpose—she eventually appointed sitting Appeals Court Judge Rowan Wilson, who sports a lengthy, progressive track record and voted against the initial Cuomo bloc’s decision in the initial redistricting case, to the chief judge position, and picked Caitlin Halligan to move into Wilson’s previous spot on the court as well, enshrining a new, progressive majority.
We haven’t seen the new progressive majority in action yet. But this case was top of mind when the Democratic Senate supermajority overrode Hochul’s initial pick, and there’s every expectation that they will side with Democrats. Perhaps even more importantly, the case presents an opportunity to finally repair some of the lasting damage done by the Cuomo regime, which looked certain to hobble state and national Democrats until 2030.
Other states, notably Alabama and Louisiana, are dealing with the fallout of judicial rulings on gerrymandering following the 2022 election, but no state is as consequential as New York in terms of sheer numbers.
If it seems as if this story of partisan sabotage and megalomania is well on its way to a happy ending: It’s not quite over yet. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries was once a Cuomo ally, and he still operates like one. He went out of his way to whip support for Hochul’s initial nominee despite the very real threat that LaSalle would have voted to keep these maps in place, and offered limited public resistance while Cuomo ran things into the ground. He has done vanishingly little to try to remove state Democratic party chairman and Cuomo loyalist Jay Jacobs from his role—Hochul has also stood by him—despite a series of damning revelations about the party’s understaffing and a letter signed by more than 1,000 Democratic elected officials, organizers, and activists calling for his resignation. There remains plenty of work to get the New York Democrats back on track, and to exorcize the demons of three Cuomo terms.
Still, it appears as though the party is one step closer to cleaning up the mess that Cuomo made for it. It could well decide whether or not Jeffries will be going by “Speaker” rather than “Leader” come 2025.
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2024 election: New York court hands Democrats control of Congress? - Slate
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