ALBANY – Fourteen plaintiffs filed a lawsuit against Gov. Kathy Hochul and Democratic lawmakers on Thursday, alleging the new congressional lines approved are unconstitutional.
The individuals claim in court papers that the new maps violate a 2014 state law establishing the process to redraw district lines and further, that the lines are gerrymandered to favor Democratic incumbents.
“The People of New York in 2014 enshrined in the New York Constitution an exclusive process for enacting replacement congressional districts, while also prohibiting partisan and incumbent-protection gerrymandering,” wrote attorneys Bennet J. Moskowitz, George H. Winner, and Misha Tseytlin in the lawsuit filed in Steuben County Supreme Court.
The petition is filed against Hochul, Lieutenant Governor Brian Benjamin, state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, the New York State Board of Elections and the New York State Legislative Task Force on Demographic Research and Reapportionment.
Hochul signed the bills that will establish the new boundaries for New York’s new congressional as well as state Senate and Assembly districts in 2023 into law around 7 p.m. Thursday evening, just hours after the legislature approved the proposals.
“The Legislature had no authority to enact the new map because the Legislature did not follow the exclusive process for enacting replacement maps that the People enshrined through the 2014 amendments, meaning that the congressional map is entirely void,” wrote the attorneys in the 67-page petition.
“This Court should expeditiously adopt a new map—prior to the impending deadlines for candidates to access the ballot—to cure the malapportionment now affecting the post-2010-census congressional map.”
“If this Court holds that the Legislature somehow had the authority to adopt a replacement map notwithstanding these procedural failures, this Court should reject it as a matter of substance, as the map is an obviously unconstitutional partisan and incumbent-protection gerrymander. If this Court takes this approach, it should invalidate the map and then send it back to the Legislature to create a new congressional map, which complies with the law,” they said.
A source told The Post attorneys are also mulling filing a separate federal lawsuit that would target specific districts, should the state courts deny the challenge.
“The maps just signed into law are unconstitutional partisan gerrymanders that attempt to rig New York elections for the next decade in defiance of the will of the voters and with blatant disregard for New York’s Constitution. These new maps must be struck down,” said the attorneys in a statement.
Reps for Hochul, Benjamin, Stewart-Cousins, Heastie and the state Board of Elections did not respond to an immediate request for comment.