2020 New York Redistricting

[Dan the Roman]

Expecting much from the NYC courts in 2021 ignores

1. Hackery
2. That for those who aren't hacks, what sort of good government Democratic lawyer/law professor in the New York City area does not view the Republican party as a threat to Democracy and a GOP house as likely to overturn a presidential election? Serious question. One does not need to be a hack to believe that there are higher moral and patriotic principles at stake and that social clique is almost entirely onboard.

It is probably an error to assume any sort of morality, integrity or patriotism would push a NYC D legal guy or gal towards ever doing anything that might advantage a GOP US House majority. Even if it is not conscious, they will grasp at any plausible justification to uphold D gerrymanders, not matter how tenuous. It will be for the "greater good"

[Dan the Roman]

Odds of passing?

There were two rulings.

5-2 against the maps
4-3 for a special master. 3 Judges argued the legislature MUST be given the chance to try and remedy the defects before taking away the power.

With a new CJ appointment there is probably a majority for letting the legislature redraw but not for letting it just do whatever it wants. They will likely need to be a bit more discrete than last time. But given 2022 it is quite likely they will be more cautious, perhaps shooting for 6 GOP seats not 4.

[Dan the Roman]

What would redistricting reform look like? Democrats since about 2017 have been committed to proportional representation which

1. Would produce nonsense maps in New England
2. From a COI/Community of Interest standpoint, make gerrymandering worse not better

[Dan the Roman]

There are a few procedural limitations that make this more like Florida than NC.

In NC there was NO clause in the state constitution addressing gerrymandering and the court left in place the county rules for the legislature.

New York does have a Constitutional prohibition against partisan gerrymandering in addition to a mandated commission and two-thirds requirements for overriding it.

Florida does as well, and the NY SC like the Florida one is making clear they will interpret those clauses in the most limited way possible that maintains deniability, but they cannot simply state, as the new NC majority did, that they have no say. Hence that segment about the Chinese community.

I don't think the Court of Appeals is asking for a compromise between Democrats and Republicans. But they are asking for a compromise between Democrats and the law, namely for the Democrats to provide something that the court sign off on for non-partisan reasons.

That 26-0 map would not stand even with this court for instance. And given the 2022 results, and non-events in Ohio, Democrats might settle for something closer to 20-3-3 rather than a "solid" 22-4.

[Dan the Roman]

Is the commission pledging not to change the old court map?

Objectively, the existing map is pretty good. I can see why they’d want to keep it similar to what it is rather than letting the legislature draw a disgusting gerrymander.

The Republicans may want it but the Dems on the commission may try to punt it to the legislature like Ohio's Republicans did.

One can only hope; the existing map is a piece of crap!

Why do you think the current map is bad? If you have actual reasoning, I’m more than willing to hear it out.

Until there is a national ban on gerrymandering (which I strongly support) any New York congressional map that isn’t a strong Democratic gerrymander is awful.  Anyway, beyond that, I genuinely believe the 2022 NY redistricting case was wrongly decided (thankfully, that decision has been effectively reversed).  So I take issue with it being imposed at all even beyond partisan considerations.    I’d also argue that it is a soft-Republican gerrymander rather than a fair map which is pretty ridiculous to have for New York.

The New York State Counstition has proviosons banning gerrymandering; if it's outrageous for the republican to subvert those provions in Ohio and Utath why is it ok for democrats to do in New York ?

Utah I will grant you,  but the Ohio map turned out alright for Democrats and has now been locked in. They would have 3 seats in a full gerrymander perhaps 2 if OH Rs went full Illinois D or NC R.

Realistically the fight came down to whether restrictions on partisan gerrymandering placed an affirmative obligation for proportionality or partisan fairness. I think that's ambigious and it's worth noting the current NY map was not drawn to do so. The proportionality was almost accidental. It has 20 seats more D than the nation and in 2020 probably would have gone something like 19-7 and 21-5 in 2018.

[Dan the Roman]

Is there anything stopping the Democratic legislature from doing the same thing they tried to in 2022, now that they have a favorable Supreme Court, by just rejecting the commission's map? Because if not, I can't see why they wouldn't take that route.

1. Procedure. We now know they have to ping-pong a bit.

2. Bare majorities. Democrats cannot afford to lose a single vote in the Senate, and 2 in the Assembly. And there are no legislative maps to hold over recalcitrant members, and there are enough Orthodox Jews sitting in Trump seats to sink any remap.

In short, this guy can sink any map

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simcha_Felder

[Dan the Roman]

Honestly I think many of you are expecting too much change. I would not be surprised at all if the commision map outlined in Politico is passed by the legislature pretty much unchanged.

You really think a supermajority will just rubber stamp a neutral map?

It won't be neutral, but a deal in the sense of Darth Vader in Cloud city. This will be the GOP members behaving like the Ohio dems, at the last minute voting for the GOP maps as they are better than what they would get otherwise, but still a gerrymander.

If the Democrats can get a bipartisan endorsed 18D-4R-4S map where Biden won every swing seat by high single-digits and don't have to worry about the COA or whipping votes then that may be worth it, especially with the Ohio Dems/GOP making a deal, VRA gains in the South.

The deal likely is not done. As in Ohio, the Democrats probably have the threat of a 22-4, but they would prefer not to go through the process, and the ideal is for the GOP to agree to a softer gerrymander. Not least because that map will be a lot of work in terms of balancing parochial interests in the legislature(with the need for two-thirds) where a commission-endorsed product only needs a majority.

[Dan the Roman]

The 2% rule is the biggest hurdle for Dems here.

What is this 2% rule? Whatever it is, if it is a problem, then I would think the supermajority legislature should simply change it.

If the legislature wants to modify the commission plan, it can't deviate more than 2% pop. for any given district.

But Democrats can always reject the first map, and then the second map, and then pass their own if they have a 2/3rd majority.

The 2% rule is only statutory and not included in the original constitutional amendment so it can be repealed easily. The problem is the constitution prohibits partisan intent in redistricting, so the case could be made that repealing the rule to draw more favorable maps is partisan intent. Dems could adjust the rule from 2 to say 5 or 10% rather than repealing it or just follow the rule and shift what seats they can 2% to the left.

Unless there's any reason to think the court will strike a gerrymander down, I don't think Democrats will care. Dems have the 3 dissenters and the new judge.

The original decision was

4-2-1. The one agreed the map was gerrymandering but constitutionally it should have gone back to the commission and the legislature.

The new vote is 3-1----3 not 4-3 in that there were four votes that proper procedure was not followed and the appointment of the special master was unconstitutional, but only 3 votes for Ds being able to do what they want. The fourth judge voted with Democrats there, but he pointedly did not disagree with any of the old majority's complaonts about the Hochulmander, merely with the special master.

I am going to be generous and say I don't think anyone in this thread seriously believes in the relevance f the fairness/COI complaints being made anymore than DeSantis genuinely believed that the VRA required getting rid of Lawson's seat. It's clear that the main objections are that there are not enough Democratic seats and that's fine if your objection is the need to balance R hackers in NC/OH.

But unlike North Carolina, where the state Constitution is silent, the NY one explicitly bans partisanship as a motive regardless of what margin the legislature votes by, and deciding not to give the Judges a figleaf is an issue in a jurisdiction which still has a fairly strong culture of a bar code of professional ethics.

I mean it's a game of smirking here, but if the Court can't even come up with a clever argument there will be social consequences for those involved that don't exist in other jurisdictions. (Not least because with elected courts people are more likely to move into higher office)

[Dan the Roman]

https://twitter.com/nydems/status/1758287925144703009?t=a2WI36TEdR3pZeiBJyuPrA&a...
Lol it's so dead.

This guy is slime, but he knows he's slime, and knows what he needs to do to keep people happy and himself in a job.

What a pathetic statement from someone who is killing fair maps.

Why should New York have to play by the rules when North Carolina and Texas can gerrymander to their heart’s desire?

The reverse is also true.

Why N.C. and Texas play by the rules when Nevada, NM, NJ, IL, OR, ect ect can gerrymander ?

The Democrats have gerrymandered so much, Republicans need the to win the P.V. by 2+ to have a majority, and that's without a NY gerrymander.

Democrats want to ban gerrymandering, but oppose unilateral disarmament.  Republicans oppose banning gerrymandering.  It’s not the same.

That isn't really true as the Democratic definition of "gerrymandering" is outcome rather than process based. The Wi Supreme Court ruling basically obligates partisan gerrymandering to ensure "geography is not destiny".

So I doubt Democrats would back a legal ban on the consideration of partisan outcomes in redistricting.

They would insist on some sort of efficiency gap/proportionality requirement

[Dan the Roman]

https://twitter.com/nydems/status/1758287925144703009?t=a2WI36TEdR3pZeiBJyuPrA&a...
Lol it's so dead.

This guy is slime, but he knows he's slime, and knows what he needs to do to keep people happy and himself in a job.

What a pathetic statement from someone who is killing fair maps.

Why should New York have to play by the rules when North Carolina and Texas can gerrymander to their heart’s desire?

The reverse is also true.

Why N.C. and Texas play by the rules when Nevada, NM, NJ, IL, OR, ect ect can gerrymander ?

The Democrats have gerrymandered so much, Republicans need the to win the P.V. by 2+ to have a majority, and that's without a NY gerrymander.

Democrats want to ban gerrymandering, but oppose unilateral disarmament.  Republicans oppose banning gerrymandering.  It’s not the same.

That isn't really true as the Democratic definition of "gerrymandering" is outcome rather than process based. The Wi Supreme Court ruling basically obligates partisan gerrymandering to ensure "geography is not destiny".

So I doubt Democrats would back a legal ban on the consideration of partisan outcomes in redistricting.

They would insist on some sort of efficiency gap/proportionality requirement

That’s not partisan gerrymandering

It is the opposite of banning partisan motivations. It makes partisanship the only or the overriding criteria. Which is clear if you read the report in Wisconsin which I did. They explicitly say partisanship is the most important criteria.

Democrats want to mandate partisan gerrymandering in some weird version of that Australian state which redraws boundaries after every election to try and retroactively produce a proportional result.

I say this as someone who intensely dislikes the dystopian rule the NC and WI GOPs imposed through their own maps, but Democrats have entirely dropped support for nonpartisan redistricting in favor of partisan balanced.

[Dan the Roman]

Assembly is much more likely to be lifers. The State Senate's Democratic majority, and hence caucus is younger. There are DINOS in the Assembly who have no great desire to create vanity seats for a whole cast of characters they probably detest, and like being able to collect bipartisan pork from congress.

It would be one thing is Democratic majorities could pass stuff. But given no one can get a budget through the Senate anyway, and that requires Republicans, well if you are a corrupt machine pol why do you care so much about a 4-seat D house majority or a 3 seat minority?

[Dan the Roman]

These margins indicate pairing, which means the GOP knows Democrats have the votes for whatever they are doing, and are happy to give them an exact two thirds majority and let people make their kid's game.

[Dan the Roman]

https://twitter.com/danielmarans/status/1762302629512622187

This is also more than 2%.

I doubt Felder would approve of any map that benefits Bowman.

He didn’t care in 2022.

Felder is an orthodox Jew and very pro-Israel he just voted for the IRC maps today being the only Dem to do so. I'd say there is a lot of work to be done to get him in the fold.

Then why didn’t he vote down the maps in 2022?

He wasn't the deciding vote.

He is unlikely to kill a map here unless people try and steamroll him.

[Dan the Roman]

This map sucks and the Senate/Jefferies needs to fix it.

https://twitter.com/politicswolf/status/1762505742211330211?s=46

This really seems to suggest Democrats are less confident about trends in Long Island and Staten Island and comparatively more optimistic about their chances in the Hudson Valley.

If you look at crossover voting for the past two decades a Presidential+9 LI district tends to vote like a Presidential +2 Hudson Valley one.

[Dan the Roman]

The leaked spin seems to be Democrats are looking to balance NC which means 3-4 gains and they appear to be counting NY03.

I also get the distinct impression that the heavily downstate and NYC congressional delegation is both ideologically and socially a poor match for the Assembly Ds. On the otherhand, the Senate is full of partisans like that.

[Dan the Roman]

If they're not going to make any changes to NY-17 and Rockland really is a ticking time bomb due to the growing Orthodox population, it might make more sense to just fully shore up Lawler. Rockland, Orange, and Sullivan Counties put together are just slightly more than the population of one CD and they narrowly voted for Trump. Doing this would also shore up Pat Ryan and allow for a bluer seat to be drawn to get rid of Molinaro.

Another thing I was thinking about -- there is a lot of talk about what part of Brooklyn and/or Manhattan to put with Staten Island...but if Dems really want to go aggressive, couldn't they just split Staten Island? Put some of it with Brooklyn (connection via the Verrazzano-Narrows bridge) and some of it with Lower Manhattan (connection via the ferry).

The would have to nuke the 2% law to do that. This would be evidence for partisan motive for COA. I am not sure if the house want to risk that.

This proposal already goes above 2% for the districts they change. They are de facto ignoring it.

R already said they won't sue this map. If they go more aggressive, they will get sued, and will lose for sure since they clearly violated the law.

Lol no,the Court is 4-3 Dem hack and they aren't going to struck down any Dem map.
You are delusional.

Court is 3-1-3.

But yes they could probably go more aggressive than this. Re submitting the Hochulmander is a direct insult to the 4 judges who felt it was gerrymandering

The vote on the Hochulmander was 5-2
On the special master it was 4-3

[Dan the Roman]

The national climate has also shifted from 2022. It genuinely looked like the GOP would have trifectas in Arizona and Wisconsin, and possibly even Pennsylvania, and a Senate majority that would block every Biden judicial nomination.

The midterms seem to have caused the fever to break with everyone. Yes North Carolina played hardball as both parties do in that state(the lame-duck D justices were retroactively invalidating referendums on the basis they were passed by legislatures elected on maps they had subsequently struck down but which had been upheld by the then-court) but even there they kept four Biden seats rather than going for 11-3 or 12-2 which would have been closer to the Hochulmander. Republicans in Ohio, with a Court majority in hand, could have gone hard for 12-3, but they chose to lock in what turned out to be a relatively soft gerrymander. Meanwhile, SCOTUS paved the way for D gains in Alabama and Louisiana, and it looks like Ds may get parity in Wisconsin.

In short, the Hochulmander is really a relic of a specific national climate in late 2021 and early 2022. One of relentless Republican advance and existential Democratic panic. It is, to put it simply, embarrassing in the same way that a 12-3 or 13-2 map would have been in Ohio. Or impeaching Justices would have been in WI.

This isn't a "deal" but the relative restraint of Republican actors in other states, by contributing to the lower temperature nationally, likely influenced NY Democrats. I suspect if the WI legislature had decided to trigger a constitutional crisis by impeaching the court and/or governor this may have gone differently.

The NY Courts are also part of the greater northeastern culture of soft merit selection which means they are very aware of climate. Rowen Wilson's December decision is much more conciliatory than his early 2022 dissent going out of his way to state that he is in no way reversing the findings of the previous majority on the merits, but merely demanding a legal process. At the end of which any product will need to comply with the constitution.

[Dan the Roman]

Just spoke to someone who was in the loop about how and why the maps were drawn; friend of the main map-drawer and engaged in the legal world that surrounds it. Here were my takeaways:

1. Democrats were frankly scared, but also acknowledged the Cervas court map all in all was pretty good for them compared to most other "neutral" possibilities. Democrats knew if they drew a map which the court overturned again, chances are they would end up with a worse map than what they started with. While it is true the current court makeup is more favorable to Democrats than before, it still wasn't enough for them to feel confident.

2. Even in the dreadful NY environment of 2022, they didn't lose seats like NY-17, NY-19, and NY-22 by much, and generally feel good about the longer term trajectories in the Hudson Valley. They didn't feel particular reason to make an effort to shore up seats like NY-17 and NY-19 for this reason; they see them as very winnable in their current configs, and expect them to possibly get bluer. The person didn't say this, but I will add the court map basically made NY-17, 18, and 19 all as blue as possible before starting to do blatant gerrymandering like cracking southern Westchester County between NY-16 and NY-17 or having NY-19 taking in parts of Albany.

3. Democrats feel more pessimistic about their longer term trajectories in Long Island. Even though NY-01 went from a narrow Biden seat to Trump seat on the new map, Democrats think NY-03 is more vulnerable for Dems than NY-01 is for Rs, meaning making NY-03 bluer at the expense of NY-01 was worth it. After that, it's pretty hard to make either one of NY-01 or NY-02 actually D-leaning without doing something that would be a liability in court. Also making NY-01 redder was a bone they were willing to throw to Rs to reduce the chances of a challenge suit.

4. Dems largely didn't touch NYC out of the fear that any change could bring up some sort of VRA suit; this is likely part of the reason NY-11 wasn't touched (touching NY-11 also risks another Republican-backed suit).

Person also admitted around the margins incumbents desires were "considered".

Overall, the person I was chatting with was quite progressive and seemed to share some of my frustrations, but came at it more through the lens of "Republicans put us in this place" than blaming Democrats for being cowardly

TLDR: Democrats did the maximum they felt they could do before risking another court challenge that could potentially end them up in a worse place than where they started.

These are awkward excuses,the Court wouldn't throw out the map.
It's a 4-3 hack Court.

justice Troutman agreed with the fact the map was illegal but just thought the remedy should be different (the legistlature should get a chance to redraw)

No,she said that Democrats broke the process but the map itself wasn't unconstitutional.

I actually went back and checked given the back and forth. At the time the minority does spend extensive time addressing each challenge(leaving a very glaring opening on the legislative record BTW which I suspect was the issue with repealing the 2% law) but Troutman very explicitly is silent on the issue.

It's closer to Barrett on the 14th Amendment case. She says she does not agree with the majority analysis of the substantive issue but then says that is because there is no need to go into it once the maps are established to be the product of an illegal process. The most she ventures is to suggest that the majority fails to fashion a workable standard.