As a thought experiment, I tried to create a commission map for the State Senate that might be basically acceptable to the Democratic caucus. It's not as implausible as I'd thought.
Essentially I followed neutral redistricting principles (grouping counties and minimising splits; not splitting towns unless unavoidable or they're very large; paying attention to COIs and transport links) but with a definite thumb on the scale in terms of which areas got grouped. The sort of thing you might get from a commission with a pronounced Democratic lean.
Here's what I got:
https://davesredistricting.org/join/63ff1e92-4815-48fd-a0c7-bb3cfe859e06Long Island9 seats here, as at present. This is probably the bit of the map I'm least happy about, because with 2016 PVIs and incumbent residences it's quite hard to give all Democratic incumbents a seat they'd like without really squiggly lines. So there are a couple of losers here.
NY-1: Northern Brookhaven and the town of Riverhead. Republican pack,
R+5.5.
NY-2: Southern Brookhaven, the South Fork and Southold. Drawn as a competitive seat.
R+0.7.
NY-3: This Brentwood-based seat is entirely in Islip, which limits how Democratic you can make it. Majority-minority by total population but not by VAP. You can accomplish the latter by grabbing Wyandanch in the Town of Babylon, but it wouldn't be a VRA seat so I'm doubtful a commission would go for it. This should still be Democratic more years than not.
D+1.5.
NY-4: The entirety of the towns of Huntington and Smithtown. Very neat, but does put a Democratic incumbent in a seat he can't win.
R+6.
NY-5: Babylon, the rest of Islip and southern Oyster Bay. Another unhappy Democratic incumbent.
R+3.8.
NY-6: Central Oyster Bay and the east of the town of Hempstead, designed to suck up Republican votes.
R+4.3.
NY-7: North Hempstead, Glen Cove and northern Oyster Bay. Not radically dissimilar to the current seat. I don't think Kaplan would be overjoyed by this, but it's fine.
D+1.9.
NY-8: Majority-minority seat in central Hempstead, taking in the home of 6th district senator Kevin Thomas. If you weren't bothered about majority minority seats you could easily boost several neighbouring seats, but realistically I think Nassau County needs one.
D+12.5.
NY-9: Long Beach and eastern Hempstead. Not quite majority-minority but should be by 2030.
D+4.5.
That equates to one super-safe Democratic seat, one reliably Democratic seat, a couple that lean Democratic, a swing seat and four seats that at present are reliably Republican. Stronger Democratic maps can of course be drawn, but it's no worse than at present and it's a swingy area.
QueensCurrently there are seven districts entirely in the borough, but it now needs part of an eighth. The natural partner is Brooklyn.
NY-10: Black majority seat on the Rockaway Peninsula and around JFK.
D+32.
NY-11: Asian majority seat in Northern Queens.
D+12.8.
NY-12: Western Queens seat covering the entire length of the East River. Majority-minority but the primary would be controlled by white liberals.
D+32.
NY-13: Corona/Jackson Heights seat. Hispanic majority with a significant Asian minority.
D+35.
NY-14: Another black majority seat in SE Queens.
D+43.
NY-15: The cross-border seat, taking in Ozone Park, Cypress Hills, Bushwick and Ridgewood. Hispanic majority. Addabbo lives here but he'd likely shift to NY-17 to avoid a primary with Salazar.
D+36.
NY-16: The other Asian majority seat, taking in areas of Eastern Queens. Stavisky doesn't live here but must be on retirement watch anyway.
D+22.
NY-17: Central Queens seat. Majority-minority but white plurality. Addabbo could run here, Stavisky could too at a push.
D+14.3.
All eight of those seats are safely Democratic in all circumstances and disruption to incumbents is minimised as much as possible.
Brooklyn and Staten IslandBrooklyn currently has seven seats plus one shared with Manhattan and one with Staten Island. It keeps the existing seats and adds another seat shared with Queens. Staten Island sees little change.
NY-18: Felder's seat is renumbered but not massively altered, because it's quite an effective pack.
R+9.3, not that presidential voting particularly matters here.
NY-19: The first of four black-majority seats in Brooklyn, stretching from East New York to Gerritsen Beach along the edge of Jamaica Bay.
D+30.
NY-20: The second, a compact Crown Heights-Flatbush-Prospect Heights seat.
D+44.
NY-21: The third, shadowing NY-19 further inland. It's ugly, but you have to break up eastern Brooklyn to get 4 black-majority seats and even so it's still about 70% black.
D+36.
NY-22: Narrowly Asian majority, although I'm not sure this is VRA protected as the various Asian communities here doesn't necessarily vote cohesively. Doesn't include Gounardes' Bay Ridge base, so he'd probably run in the 26th instead.
D+9.4.
NY-23: The North Shore, Coney Island and enough territory to connect them. Felder's district and the South Shore aside, this is the most marginal NYC district on the map.
D+7.3.
NY-24: Most of Staten Island.
R+12.5.
NY-25: The fourth black-majority district, taking in Bed-Stuy and Clinton Hill.
D+46.
NY-26: White majority uber-liberal district, running from Bay Ridge to the Brooklyn Bridge and reaching inland as far as Windsor Terrace. I assume Gounardes would run here? It'd be an open seat if not.
D+34.
NY-27: Based in Williamsburg, this also extends over the river to grab the Lower East Side. Brian Kavanagh lives here.
D+37.
The 18th will vote for whoever can best mobilise rabbinic support and the 24th is safely Republican, but nothing else is in any danger of being competitive.
ManhattanCurrently has four seats to itself plus one shared with the Bronx and one with Brooklyn. By drawing small seats, I was able to give Manhattan five of its own seats plus one shared with Brooklyn.
NY-28: Lower Manhattan district curving round the 27th district.
D+34.
NY-29: The Upper East side.
D+25.
NY-30: The Upper West side.
D+35.
NY-31: The Harlem/East Harlem district. You'd need super-squiggly lines to get this black-majority (and even then it probably wouldn't be by 2030) but this is a strong enough plurality to perform throughout the decade.
D+44.
NY-32: Hispanic majority northern Manhattan district.
D+42.
Nothing to see there, unsurprisingly.
BronxCurrently the borough has three districts to itself, one shared with Manhattan and two with Westchester. You can simplify this to four districts in the Bronx and one shared with Mount Vernon (and no other part of Westchester.)
NY-33: South Bronx district. Less than 2.5% white.
D+45.
NY-34: Not much to say here.
D+42.
NY-35: There's no need to preserve the seat drawn for Klein, so this is just a compact district in the North West Bronx.
D+37.
NY-36: Compact East Bronx district. Only very narrowly Hispanic majority, as that's how the lines naturally draw themselves and I thought it might protect Biaggi from a primary challenge.
D+33.
NY-37: Comfortably black-majority seat centred on Mount Vernon and Eastchester.
D+41.
Even less to see there.
WestchesterRight now the county is split six ways, but this map has three districts wholly in the county and one shared with the Bronx.
NY-38: Yonkers and Greenburgh are the right size for a (majority minority) district. Two State Senators currently reside in Yonkers, but Stewart-Cousins definitely has first dibs (and Mayer has a district to go to.)
D+17.
NY-39: South-eastern Westchester. The town of Harrison is split, because somewhere had to be and it's not an actual settlement. Mayer would probably run here.
D+12.5.
NY-40: Northern Westchester. Harckham lives here and would likely enjoy having a safer seat.
D+6.8.
The Hudson ValleyNY-41: All of Rockland County bar the town of Stony Point.
D+2.7.
NY-42: Stony Point, eastern Orange County and south-western Dutchess.
R+1.4, which is not as safe as I'd want for a Democratic incumbent.
NY-43: All of Putnam and most of Dutchess.
R+2.3. A more aggressive map would probably removed western Dutchess and make this into a pack along the Connecticut border.
NY-44: Ulster County and western Orange County. You could make this safer, but at the cost of probably conceding NY-42. Hinchey would run here.
D+3.2.
Northern NY and the Capital RegionNY-45: Washington, Rensselaer, Columbia and Greene. R+1.4, although it'd be quite easy to flip this if you swapped Greene for part of Albany County.
NY-46: The entirety of Albany County. There are wasted votes here, but if you're doing a good government map then you probably do have to give the only county that's the right size for a district it's own seat.
D+13.2.
NY-47: Schenectady, Fulton, Montgomery and south-western Saratoga.
R+1.6, again flippable if you split Albany.
NY-48: Most of Saratoga County, from where it stretches north to the outskirts of Plattsburgh.
R+1.8, so yet another seat that leans Republican but is swingy.
NY-49: Jefferson, St. Lawrence, Franklin and most of Clinton.
R+0.3.
NY-50: The entirety of Oneida, Lewis and Franklin counties.
R+9.3.
NY-51: Six counties west of Albany and east of Binghamton.
R+6.6.
The Democrats can rely on the three seats wholly in Westchester county and the Albany seat, and another two have D PVIs. That's one down from the seven seats in the region they hold, but there are another five seats with PVIs below R+2 so Republicans would need to focus on defence in these areas and only James Skoufis amongst the incumbents has a seat with an R PVI.
Western NYNY-52: Broome, Tioga and Chemung counties.
R+4.
NY-53: Oswego county and northern Onondaga county, including about half of Syracuse.
D+3.4. Whilst this is an obvious example of putting a thumb on the scales, it's effective enough and a much cleaner split of the city than is currently the case.
NY-54: The rest of Onondaga County and the entirety of Cayuga.
D+5.3.
NY-55: Eastern Rochester and southern Monroe County. I think Rochester is large enough that you can argue keeping it whole is a pack, so this doesn't feel too force.
D+12.3.
NY-56: The other Rochester seat. I had hoped to keep this east of the Genesee, but I had to cross in order to keep it safely Democratic.
D+5.1.
NY-57: Bits of the southern tier plus Livingston County and about half of Wyoming County.
R+12.5, just slightly less Republican than NY-24.
NY-58: Cortlandt, Tompkins, Schuyler, Seneca, Yates and Steuben counties.
D+0.4. Alternatively, you could combine Broome, Cortland and most of Tompkins in a D+4 seat, but that's an extra county split and it's not necessary to secure a majority.
NY-59: Ontario and Wayne counties plus western Monroe.
R+3.7.
NY-60: Northern Buffalo and its suburbs.
D+5.8.
NY-61: Southern and western Erie County.
R+9.3.
NY-62: Niagara, Orleans and Genesee counties, plus about half of Wyoming.
R+10.1.
NY-63: Southern Buffalo, Lackawanna and Cheektowaga. Minority majority by total population, white majority by VAP but probably has a decent chance of electing a black candidate after Tim Kennedy moves on.
D+22.
This gives every Democratic incumbent a decent seat to run in, all but one above D+5 and also creates an opportunity for an Ithaca Democrat.
Overall, such a map would create 40 districts with a Democratic PVI, 33 with a PVI above D+5 and a whole host of marginal Republican seats (11 at R+5 or below) that would force them to play defence in most cycles. That's not as good as you can get with an aggressive gerrymander, but it's secure and means a two-thirds majority would usually be in reach.
