New York Redistricting Lawsuit Could Cost House GOP Up to 6 Seats

Vice President Kamala Harris (L), New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (C), and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (R) stand on stage during a "Get Out the Vote" rally at Manhattan's Barnard College in New York on Nov. 3, 2022. (Timonthy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images)

Lawsuits challenging post-2020 Census congressional maps could see as many as 18 House incumbents across a dozen states—including up to 14 Republicans—campaigning in 2024 in districts different than those they won in 2022.

Most were filed by Democrats and received a boost in June 2023 when the United States Supreme Court ruled Alabama’s Republican-led Legislature redistricting plan disadvantaged black voters and violated the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

A dozen similar challenges underway in state and federal courts across the country could result in redrawn Congressional districts before 2024’s election, including Alexander v. South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP, heard before the U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 11.

None could be more significant than Republicans’ appeal of a New York Appellate Court’s rejection of the state’s special-master drawn congressional map that saw GOP candidates gain four seats in 2022, turning Democrats’ 19–8 New York House bulge into a competitive 15–11 contingent.

Newly seated Chief Judge Rowan D. Wilson will orchestrate a full-panel review before the New York Court of Appeals—the state’s Supreme Court—of challenges to June’s ruling in Hoffmann v. New York State Independent Redistricting Commission beginning Nov. 15 in Buffalo.

If the appeal fails, New York’s Democrat-dominated state Legislature could get a second crack at re-crafting the state’s 26 congressional districts. The map lawmakers initially adopted in 2022, rejected as unconstitutional, would have given Democrat candidates a 22–4 advantage in 2022.

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Instead, the New York Court of Appeals repealed the map and ordered a special master to develop one for the 2022 midterms. Under that map, Republicans gained four New York seats, key victories in securing the GOP’s narrow 221–212 House midterms majority.

If the appeal is rejected, some analysts say New York lawmakers could redraw district lines in a way that could handicap 2024 reelection prospects for four to six New York House Republicans.

A map of a GOP proposal to redraw Alabama's congressional districts is displayed at the Alabama Statehouse in Montgomery on July 18, 2023. (Kim Chandler/AP Photo)

Math Favors Democrats

Those four to six New York seats are, potentially, among as many as 14 GOP House incumbents who could see court rulings alter their 2022-won districts before 2024 elections.

In addition to the U.S. Supreme Court’s Alabama ruling and pending South Carolina decision, if plaintiffs win lawsuits in Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, and Louisiana, as many as 10 to 14 Republican-held congressional districts could be redrawn before next November to benefit Democrats.

The only 2024-pertinent legal action where Republicans could gain or retain seats for the next election is the Hoffman appeal in New York, although the GOP is poised to gain as many as three North Carolina congressional seats following 2023 redistricting.

After the North Carolina Supreme Court rejected the state’s 2022 maps, the GOP-dominant North Carolina state Legislature redrew a map analysts say imperils three House Democrats and could turn the state’s 7–7 Congressional delegation into a 10–4 GOP-dominated contingent.

The map has spurred legal challenges, but after Republicans flipped North Carolina’s Supreme Court in 2022, and the new Court promptly undid the map crafted by its Democrat-majority predecessor, state challenges are unlikely to prevail while accompanying federal suits are unlikely to be heard before 2024’s elections.

New Mexico’s state GOP committee appeal of a state court reaffirmation of that state’s congressional maps was denied in October, the only other legal action that could have benefited Republican House candidates.

Protesters greet Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) as he leaves a federal courthouse in Central Islip, New York, on Oct. 27, 2023. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

GOP in New York State of Bind

Post-Census redistricting is the responsibility of the New York State Independent Redistricting Commission (IRC). In early 2022, the bipartisan panel drafted two maps but failed to reach a consensus on which one to endorse.

As a result, state lawmakers stepped in. The Democrat-dominated General Assembly devised a map that handicapped at least half the state’s House Republicans that Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul subsequently approved in March 2022.

The General Assembly’s map immediately drew a battery of lawsuits with mostly Republican plaintiffs arguing the “Hochul-mandering” violated federal and state laws.

In April 2022, the State Court of Appeals upheld those arguments in Harkenrider v. Hochul and Nichols v. Hochul in a 4–3 ruling penned by then-Chief Judge Janet DiFiore, who determined “judicial oversight is required to facilitate the expeditious creation of constitutionally conforming maps for use in the 2022 elections.”

Her ruling ordered court-appointed special master Jonathan Cervas to redraw the map. During the ensuing 2022 midterm elections, Republicans gained four seats, turning what had been a 21–6 Democrat-dominated House delegation in 2018 into a 15–11 contingent in 2022.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee filed a June 2022 lawsuit, Hoffman, insisting the 2022 districts drawn by Mr. Cervas are only temporary and must be redrafted by the IRC and signed into law by the governor.

On July 13, 2023, an Albany appellate court agreed with Hoffman plaintiffs in a 3–2 ruling and ordered the IRC to redraw the state’s congressional map.

“The procedures governing the redistricting process, all too easily abused by those who would seek to minimize the voters’ voice and entrench themselves in the seats of power, must be guarded as jealously as the right to vote itself; in granting this petition, we return the matter to its constitutional design,” judges wrote in their opinion.

The ruling was applauded by Democrats.

“The Appellate Division decision confirms the New York State Constitution requires congressional district lines be drawn by an independent redistricting commission,” said House Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) in a statement. “In contrast, the current congressional map was drawn by an unelected, out-of-town Special Master appointed by an extreme right-wing judge, who himself was handpicked by partisan political operatives.”

Republican intervenors appealed the July 13 decision within two weeks. On Sept. 19, New York’s Court of Appeals agreed to stay the IRC order until the appeal is heard.

The appeal insists Hoffman comes too late after post-Census redistricting. Under the state’s Constitution, Republicans say, mid-decade redistricting is prohibited “unless to remedy a violation of law.”

Petitioners argue the Court of Appeals’ April 2022 Harkenrider/Nichols rulings “remedied the violation in law,” meaning “there’s no case.”

If the appeal fails, the IRC will get another chance to draw congressional maps, although lawmakers can amend it before sending it to the governor’s desk. The commission will need to hold 12 hearings across the state quickly if it is to get a map before lawmakers by March 2024.