It looks like the New York State legislature could be causing some more drama and bringing about new lawsuits, as the newly drawn up congressional maps from the bipartisan Independent Redistricting Commission (IRC) were voted down on Monday. That new maps are even allowed at all before the next census is the result of a lawsuit that Democrats won last December with the state's highest court, the New York Court of Appeals. According to a report from The New York Times, the State Senate was the first to act.
Timing for the maps is critical ahead of the June 25 primary, with a filing deadline of April 4. As the report mentioned:
With House candidates set to begin gathering petitions to get on the ballot this week, Michael Gianaris, the No. 2 Democrat in the State Senate, said lawmakers would move swiftly to try to enact a replacement map before the week’s end. But they were still working late Monday to find agreement on the new district contours.
The choice could have major consequences for the national battle for the House. With only a handful of tweaks, Democratic state lawmakers could effectively stack the deck against Republicans in as many as six swing seats from Long Island to Syracuse.
Throughout the report, there's discussion of claims about reconfiguring districts over the "so-called communities of interest split between districts."
Just as was the case in 2022, New York Democrats could face chaos and drama if they overplay their hand and are hit with a lawsuit:
The party was trying to navigate intense competing pressures after two years of near constant fighting over New York’s maps. Democrats under the leadership of Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York most recently spent millions of dollars in legal fees in court fighting for the chance to redraw the maps to help make him speaker.
But they also cannot afford a repeat of 2022, when Democrats in the Legislature overplayed their hand and watched in humiliation the state’s top court struck down their map as an unconstitutional gerrymander. The court proceeded to put in place a neutral replacement map that helped Republicans make stark gains.
“It’s a big fork in the road,” said Dave Wasserman, an elections analyst with the Cook Political Report. “The more aggressive their play, the bigger potential reward in seats, but the higher risk courts could step in again to block it or preserve the status quo.”
The maps for 2022 that were drawn up and ultimately thrown out involved some of the most egregious forms of gerrymandering. Those maps even earned the name "hochulmander," a play on "gerrymander and Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul's name. The governor was a key part in the lawsuit used to throw out the final maps for 2022 so as to draw up new ones for the 2024 election.
After the courts threw out the maps in 2022, some of that chaos involved pitting incumbent against incumbent, in the case of the primary battle against Democratic Reps. Jerry Nadler and Carolyn Maloney for control of the state's 12th Congressional District. Nadler handily won in the August primary that year, with 55.44 percent to Maloney's 24.39 percent.
Former Democratic Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney also jumped at the chance to run in the 17th Congressional District, forcing former Rep. Mondaire Jones to run in the 10th Congressional District, where he came in third, losing to now Rep. Dan Goldman. For all of his troubles, Maloney was not only hit with accusations of racism for pushing Jones out of the district, but he lost the general election to now Rep. Mike Lawler, his Republican opponent. With such a loss, Maloney became the first Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) chairman to lose the general election since 1980.
New York State Democrats are now expected to draw up their own maps to be even more favorable to them in November, despite how the IRC approved the voted down ones by a vote of 9-1. News of such a plan came even before the maps were officially voted down, with POLITICO running a headline earlier on Monday that "New York Democrats expected to back their own House map."
Lee Zeldin, a Republican who previously represented New York's 1st Congressional District and who came close to beating Hochul in the November 2022 gubernatorial election, was quick to blast the state legislature with a statement on Monday afternoon.
"Corrupt Albany politicians must end their self-serving gamesmanship and stop attacking the right of voters to consistent and fair representation. The state Legislature should simply adopt the 2022 House map, drawn by a court-appointed nonpartisan expert, to avoid any further confusion and chaos, especially with petitioning previously scheduled to start tomorrow. Hyperpartisan, power-hungry Democrats in the state Legislature are violating the letter and spirit of the state Constitution to gerrymander their way into control of Congress. Any further attempt to undermine this process and the will of the people of New York will result in another costly and time-consuming court battle," Zeldin said in his statement.
Zeldin had also previously expressed support for the version that was just voted down on Monday.