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A state appellate judge ripped New York’s legislature Thursday for creating a redistricting panel that lawmakers knew was “flawed from the outset” — resulting in a messy, partisan “stalemate” over disputed congressional district maps that have ended up in court.
The 10-member “independent redistricting commission” formed in 2014 to redraw congressional and state Senate and Assembly maps following the decennial census was not independent at all, Appellate Judge Stephen Lindley said during a virtual hearing Thursday.
The appointments to the panel were equally split between Democrats and Republicans, resulting in bipartisan gridlock.
The redistricting process “was flawed from the outset” and “everyone knew it,” Lindley said.
“It’s no surprise. It wasn’t independent.”
Because of the impasse with the redistricting panel, the Democrat-run Legislature redrew the congressional maps that an upstate Supreme Court Judge Patrick McAllister last week shot down as unconstitutional, concluding the new districts were “gerrymandered” to diminish Republican represent ation.
The number of GOP House members could be cut in half, from 8 to 4.
“It’s not just a gerrymander, we’re calling it a Hochulmander,” state Republican Party Chairman Nick Langworthy said last week, blaming the gerrymandering on Hochul and saying she wanted to try to preserve the Democrats’ razor-thin majority in the House of Representatives.
For example, the current 11th congressional district of Republican Rep. Nicole Malliotakis includes all of Staten Island as well as moderate-to-conservative neighborhoods in southern Brooklyn closest to the island across the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, including Dyker Heights and Bath Beach.
The newly drawn district skips over those neighborhoods and instead snakes along the northwest Brooklyn waterfront to take in the heavily liberal Democratic areas of Sunset Park and Park Slope, giving a Democratic candidate a much better shot at stealing the seat from Malliotakis.
Lindley leveled his criticism during a hearing on whether to continue a temporary stay on the lower court ruling pending an appeal on the merits of the case.
He said he would likely issue a decision on Friday on the temporary stay.
The Appellate Division Fourth Department is expected to hear arguments on the merits of the appeal on April 20.
“We remain very hopeful on the judge’s decision which could come as early as tomorrow,” said former GOP Rep. John Faso, one of the plaintiffs in the redistricting lawsuit.
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