Constitutional amendment to permit mid-decade redistricting would still prohibit partisan gerrymandering

New York Democrats want to fight fire with fire if another state like Texas tries to bulk up Republicans’ House numbers by redrawing congressional district lines in the middle of a decade. But they still want to appear like they have the moral high ground by officially prohibiting that very same partisan gerrymandering.

State Sen. Michael Gianaris and Assembly Member Micah Lasher formally introduced a proposed state constitutional amendment on Wednesday that would allow the state Legislature to engage in off-year redistricting if another state moves to do it first.

Notably, the proposal would keep the five criteria that currently govern the drawing of district lines meant to maintain fairness. That includes an explicit prohibition on partisan redistricting: “Districts shall not be drawn to discourage competition or for the purpose of favoring or disfavoring incumbents or other particular candidates or political parties.”

That might seem counterproductive if the goal is to counterbalance other states’ GOP-friendly partisan gerrymandering, but Gianaris doesn’t see it that way. “We don't need to sacrifice our principles to do our work,” he told City & State. “We can come up with lines that comply with constitutional criteria that still accomplish our goal.” Gianaris implied that following the other criteria, which include racial equity and maintaining communities of interest, would still result in maps inherently favorable to Democrats, without that being the explicit goal. 

Such was the case in the first map that lawmakers approved and Gianaris helped draw in 2022. He and other Democrats argued then and continue to believe that the districts were not gerrymandered, even though their configuration favored Democrats. The state Court of Appeals came to a different conclusion, throwing out the congressional lines on the grounds they were unconstitutionally partisan.

Gianaris called that court ruling “completely illegitimate” and expressed confidence that the state’s highest court, which is now led by a more liberal chief judge, would come to a different confusion if the Legislature drew a comparable map. “We had maps thrown out in a bogus decision, one of the worst the Court of Appeals ever reached,” he said. It seems like a gamble, but the current Court of Appeals did rule in the Legislature’s favor in 2024, giving both the Independent Redistricting Commission and the Legislature another shot at redrawing the map that an outside expert cooked up.

The proposed constitutional amendment would allow lawmakers to forgo the commission process entirely in the case of a mid-decade reapportionment, permitting the Legislature to immediately draw and pass new district lines in the interest of expediency. Legislators could also approve the new congressional map with a simple majority, as opposed to the two-thirds majority needed during the usual process when one party controls both chambers.

Of course, the amendment would not affect the upcoming congressional races next year, which the sponsors acknowledged. Due to the process for approving changes to the state constitution, the earliest that voters could weigh in is 2027, with 2028 being the first possible year lawmakers could attempt to draw new lines.

Gianaris said that the proposed amendment already has support from a number of his colleagues, and that state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins is open to considering the change. Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie also kept the door open to the amendment on Tuesday. And Gov. Kathy Hochul said on Wednesday that she is in “active talks with local and national leaders” and plans to meet with them soon to “align our next move.”