The Assembly Chamber in the State Capitol in Albany. Lawmakers would have to approve the redistricting amendment again in 2027 before it could go to voters.Photo: Matt Wade, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Gov. Kathy Hochul said this week that she is still open to a constitutional amendment that would let New York redraw its congressional districts before the next census, even after Democrats made substantial gains in last week’s elections, Gothamist and Spectrum News reported. Speaking to reporters Tuesday at her Manhattan office, Hochul did not commit to moving ahead. “The political landscape has changed,” she said, adding that she would take that into account and talk with House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries and the state’s legislative leaders “about where we want to go with this.”
Gothamist reported that Democrats picked up enough seats nationally to take control of the U.S. House. Hochul argued that maps drawn in other states remain in place. “And while it didn’t have an effect on this year’s election, there’s always another election every two years,” she said. “You can’t assume that there’s going to be the same outcomes every two years, and so I want to look at it long-term.” Spectrum quoted her pointing out that lawmakers have already taken the first step: “We’re halfway there. We already passed one session.”
State lawmakers gave the amendment preliminary approval in June. Because a constitutional amendment must pass two consecutively elected legislatures, they would have to approve it again in 2027 before it could go to voters, as soon as November 2027. If voters approved it, new maps could be drawn for the 2028 elections, though Spectrum noted that lawmakers would still have to decide whether to redraw them. Gothamist reported that New York’s constitution now requires a bipartisan panel to draw congressional lines after each census, with lawmakers giving final approval, and that it does not provide a way to change the districts in between. Spectrum said the proposal would also remove existing constitutional restrictions against drawing districts to favor a political party or incumbent.
Former Republican Rep. John Faso, who has opposed the effort, told Gothamist that Democrats would be making a “big mistake,” noting that voters approved the current process in 2014 and rejected a prior Democratic-led change in 2021, and that the Court of Appeals struck down a Democrat-drawn map in 2022. He told Spectrum the amendment would also let lawmakers disregard county, town and other municipal boundaries, and said he had opposed mid-decade redistricting by Republicans in other states as well. “As my mother used to tell me, two wrongs don’t make a right,” Faso said. State Sen. Shelley Mayer, a Yonkers Democrat, told Gothamist it is “premature” to say whether lawmakers will take the amendment up again, while Rep. Joseph Morelle told POLITICO, as quoted by Gothamist, that he will urge them to move ahead. The Legislature is due to return in January, when Democrats will hold two-thirds majorities in both houses.
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