GOP sues after Hochul signs NY's redistricting maps into law - New York Daily News - New York Daily News
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Gov. Hochul signed New York’s new congressional and legislative maps into law on Thursday, capping a chaotic process and two days of bitter feuding in Albany, where the ruling Democrats drew new district lines over Republican opposition.
Hochul inked her signature to bills codifying the maps after lawmakers approved legislative redistricting earlier in the day that would hand New York City two more Senate seats.
The legislative map’s passage came one day after lawmakers passed a controversial congressional district plan that reshaped several districts to make them friendlier to Democrats. The GOP quickly filed a legal challenge.
Democrats have supermajorities in the Assembly and the Senate, and they rammed their maps through the Legislature after a bipartisan commission created for the once-a-decade redistricting failed to reach a consensus and gave up last week.
On Thursday, lawmakers again found themselves split on partisan lines, as the legislative map passed the Assembly by a 118-to-29 vote and the Senate by a 43-to-20 vote.
State Sen. Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D-Yonkers), the majority leader, said Thursday that Democrats in Albany had done a “service to the people of New York by actually reflecting where the population growth is.”
State Sen. Sue Serino (R-Hyde Park) charged that the legislative map, like the congressional map, had been “blatantly gerrymandered” to give Democrats a leg up.
The congressional map would put the Democratic Party at an advantage in 22 of 26 New York congressional districts. Currently, Democrats hold 19 of New York’s 27 seats in the House. The state is losing a district due to national population shifts.
The state had about 2.3 registered Democrats for each Republican last year, according to Board of Elections records, suggesting New York’s congressional representation could skew sharply in the Democrats’ favor due to redistricting.
Jeff Wice, a professor at New York Law School who studies redistricting, said the legislative map does not amount to a “power grab” and that it corrects the current map, which gives upstate regions disproportionate sway in Albany.
“The malapportionment in the Senate has really hurt New York City and the downstate region for decades,” Wice said Thursday. “Now New York City will have its proper, true and balanced representation in the state Senate.”
The legislative map would also create Hispanic-leaning and Black-leaning Senate districts on Long Island, Wice said.
The governor, a former congresswoman who lost her seat after a redraw made her district more red, had kept quiet for days about whether she would sign onto the maps.
“I will assess the maps when they are presented to me in their finality,” Hochul said in a news conference on Tuesday in the Bronx. “I just really want this process to keep moving forward. We need the certainty, the clarity.”
source: https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/new-york-elections-government/ny-state-legislative-map-approved-albany-20220203-o3zkwpbp4rc2dezqmlpicy2zra-story.html
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