This week- Revisiting New York’s 2022 Congressional Gerrymander, Voting Rights Act Litigation, NY Attorney General Preclearance Activity, Around the Nation: Louisiana State Maps Rejected
REDISTRICTING
Revisiting New York’s 2022 Congressional Gerrymander
In an August 11th City and State NY article, Rebecca Lewis looks at how New York’s congressional districts have performed since the 2022 redistricting. While the 2022 map was drawn by Dr. Jonathan Cervas for the New York State Supreme Court, several districts were changed pursuant to a subsequent court order resulting in the state commission and legislature completing the work left undone in 2022. The 2024 elections were held using the new map.
Lewis first takes a look at the 3rd district,now including parts of Nassau, Suffolk, and Queens Counties. The map originally drawn by the legislature and rejected by the court would have “included parts of five counties. It’s not often that one might need a ferry to get from point to point quickly in a congressional district,” according to Lewis.
She also takes a look at the reconfigurations of districts 10 and 11. From 1993 to 2021, Congressman Jerry Nadler represented a district (the previous 10th district) than ran along Manhattan’s west side and then southerly along parts of Brooklyn down to parts of Brooklyn). The current map places Nadler entire lywithin Manhattan, ending the elongated district first created in 1992 to permit the creation of an entirely new district that has been represented by Nydia Valasquez since 1993.
The 16th and 24th districts are also reviewed. The 16th district centers around the Hudson Valley that always sees marked changes to the cluster of districts that result when legal population equality requirements require the shifting of communities east and west of the lower Hudson River. The 24th district has permitted Republicans to hold on to one district in the western part of the state.
Read the article here: http://bit.ly/45BYuuD
LITIGATION
Orange County: Clarke et al. v. Newburgh
On July 7th, the defendants-appellants Town of Newburgh and Town Board, or filed their brief with the New York Court of Appeals. The Court will hear the case in October. The brief argues that the NYVRA’s vote-dilution provisions violate the Equal Protection Clauses of the U.S. Constitution and the New York Constitution because strict scrutiny applies and these provisions are not narrowly tailored to achieve a compelling interest (as required under strict scrutiny).
In the alternative, the Town argues that the Court should hold that the NYVRA’s vote-dilution provisions require the plaintiff (i.e., six Newburgh voters) to prove “additional, implicit elements derived from U.S. Supreme Court Equal Protection Caselaw.” Lastly, the Town asserts it has the capability to challenge these provisions as unconstitutional. However, the question of capacity to bring this lawsuit does not affect the Court’s ability to decide on the issues of constitutionality.
VOTING RIGHTS ACT
N.Y. Attorney General’s Office Preclearance
741 Albany County BOE- poll site locations- under review
All submissions can be viewed at: https://nyvra-portal.ag.ny.gov/
AROUND THE NATION
LOUISIANA: The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a lower court ruling, striking down Louisiana’s state legislative maps for violating the federal Voting Rights Act (VRA). The court agreed that Louisiana’s maps “cracked” and “packed” Black communities (i.e., “packing” Black communities into a small number of districts and “cracking” greater communities across several districts) in ways that unlawfully diluted Black voting power under Section 2 of the VRA.
Louisiana had argued that “conditions in the state changed enough to make race-conscious remedies unnecessary.” The court rejected this claim, and declined to depart from “settled and uniformed precedent.” With this ruling, the state must now redraw maps that provide an equal opportunity for Black voters (approximately one-third of the state) to elect candidates of their choice.
The U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear a separate case challenging Louisiana’s congressional maps for violating the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments.
INSTITUTE RESOURCES
The New York Elections, Census and Redistricting Institute has archived many resources for the public to view on our Digital Commons Page.
Our Redistricting Resources page contains resources on the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act. You can access the page
here: https://digitalcommons.nyls.edu/redistricting_resources/
Archived Updates can be accessed
here: https://digitalcommons.nyls.edu/redistricting_roundtable_updates/
Please share this weekly update with your colleagues. To be added to the mailing list, please contact Jeffrey.wice@nyls.edu
The N.Y. Elections, Census & Redistricting Institute is supported by grants from the New York Community Trust, New York Census Equity Fund and the New York City Council. This report was prepared by Jeff Wice and Alexis Marking.