Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) calls out Democrat House and Senate leaders over the immigration crisis and heavy influx into "sanctuary cities" during a Sept. 27, 2023, House Natural Resources Committee Hearing on President Joe Biden’s use of National Parks for Migrants. (Screenshot via NTD)
The State of New York Court of Appeals ordered a new congressional map this week, which one GOP leader predicts will lead to confusion and chaos in 2024 election contests.
“Candidates and challengers aren’t going to know what district they are going to be running in for a few months at least, if not longer,” former New York Republican Congressman John Faso told The Epoch Times.
After hearing oral arguments on Nov. 15, the state’s highest court decided 4–3 that voters should not be forced to rely on Congressional Districts (CDs) drawn by a special master appointed by Steuben County Judge Patrick McAllister in the matter of Harkenrider v. Hochul.
“In 2014, the voters of New York amended our Constitution to provide that legislative districts be drawn by an Independent Redistricting Commission (IRC),” Chief Judge Rowan D. Wilson wrote in the Dec. 12 decision. “The Constitution demands that process, not districts drawn by courts.”
The deadline for the bipartisan IRC to submit a compliant map is Feb. 28, 2024. But Mr. Faso, who is also an attorney, alleges the high court’s decision is incorrect.
“What the Court of Appeals has now done is, in essence, eviscerate the 2014 Constitutional Amendment, which was intended to limit the power of the legislature,“ he said. ”The court is now going back to business as usual. It’s really a tragic result.”
Underlying the New York Supreme Court’s order is a lawsuit filed by Anthony S. Hoffman and nine other New York voters against the IRC in Albany on June 28, alleging that the special master’s map is invalid because it violates redistricting provisions created by a constitutional amendment approved by New York voters in 2021.
There are predictions that a new map will benefit Democrats, but New York Law School professor Jeffrey Wice believes it’s too early to tell.
“The IRC has to regroup,” Mr. Wice told The Epoch Times. “It has to look at possible plans, see if they can agree to send the map to the legislature, or whether the Democrats will simply send a map of their own to the legislature. The legislature can’t be too greedy, or they will land in the same litigation it was in a year ago by overreaching through partisan gerrymandering.”
Mr. Wice is a senior fellow at the New York Census and Redistricting Institute, where he teaches redistricting and voting rights.
The existing map in the November 2022 elections resulted in victory for the Republican party that led to a GOP majority in U.S. House of Representatives after some seats flipped from blue to red.
Professor Jeffrey Wice (Courtesy of New York Law School)
“The one thing with redistricting is if you move one line, it starts to affect all the other lines,” Vince Casale, a New York political consultant, told The Epoch Times.
“I believe the focus will start around Congressman [Mike] Lawler’s seat because New York Democrats thought they drew good lines in their favor. Then, we had an election, and they found out those lines weren’t as good as they thought.”
In addition to the election of Reps. Mike Lawler and Marc Molinaro in the Hudson Valley, GOP gains included Central New York’s Rep. Brandon Williams and the now disgraced Rep. George Santos in Long Island, whose seat was vacated on Dec. 1, when the House voted to expel him.
“There’s no doubt the Democrats are going to be targeting them like a laser beam to try to make those districts more Democrat,” Robert Hornak, a political consultant with Lexington Public Affairs, told The Epoch Times. “That’s the whole purpose of the lawsuit. It wasn’t just for giggles.”
Mr. Hornak is also the former executive director of the Queens GOP.
This isn’t Mr. Lawler’s first experience with redistricting.
He served as executive director of the state Republican Party under 2012 redistricting.
As a candidate, his experience has intensified.
“State law has changed since 2012 and created the IRC, so it’s a totally different process,” Mr. Lawler told The Epoch Times. “It impacts you more acutely as an elected official and candidate, but ultimately the voters will decide, and that’s where my focus will be.”
CD 3’s special election to replace Mr. Santos is scheduled for Feb. 13, 2024, two weeks before the Feb. 28 redistricting implementation deadline.
As a result, new boundaries for CD 3 will not impact the candidate who is elected to complete Mr. Santos’ remaining term.
“I’m not sure how much of a difference redistricting will make on Long Island anyway because Long Island has been trending red and redder over the last couple of cycles,” Mr. Hornak said.
By November 2024, CD 3 is expected to be under the same new map as other New York districts. But try as they might, Democrats will never succeed at driving Republicans out of New York state, according to Mr. Casale, who works with Republican candidates.
“We have some good incumbents out there who are well-known and well-liked in their districts, and if the core of those districts stays in place, then those incumbents will have an advantage,” he added. “You can’t get rid of all Republicans. It’s not going to happen because there are pockets of Republicans all over the state.”
The presidential primaries are in April 2024, while congressional and legislative primaries are in June 2024.
Ultimately, if the IRC is unable to agree on new congressional boundaries, the task will be forwarded to the Democrat-dominant state legislature, which could potentially deadlock the entire process if Republicans mount a legal challenge to the outcome.
“What’s left unsaid in the court’s decision is ‘Don’t come back to the courts’ or ’Don’t send to the legislature these ridiculously gerrymandered districts because we’re just going to throw them out',” Mr. Casale said. “I don’t think there’s going to be much tolerating grandiose changes to these seats.”
The New York State Board of Elections did not immediately respond to requests for comment about whether the petition period will be changed or if primaries will be rescheduled to a later date to accommodate the redistricting deadline.
“If you’re running for any congressional district, you have to start circulating petitions to get signatures to be placed on the ballot in early March. But if the boundaries of those election districts change, you could be collecting petitions for the wrong district,” said Mr. Faso. “That’s why the timing on this is going to be very critical.”
Correction: the previous version of this article stated the wrong name for the court that ordered the new Congressional map to be drawn. The Epoch Times regrets the error.
Juliette Fairley is a freelance reporter for The Epoch Times and a graduate of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. Born in Chateauroux, France, and raised outside of Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, Juliette is a well-adjusted military brat. She has written for many publications across the country. Send Juliette story ideas at [email protected]
