ALBANY – New state assembly district lines were passed into law Monday, although they are largely the same as those previously in effect.
“I think that the [Independent Redistricting Commission] listened to the testimony that was given them,” Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie said at the Capitol, referring to the panel that recommended the boundaries, which were adopted by both houses.
The approved map was then signed into law by Gov. Kathy Hochul.
A state court ordered a redo of the lines late last year after a ruling that said Albany lawmakers overstepped their authority by drawing new districts for the Assembly.
A previous separate ruling did the same for the state Senate and US House when the commission could not agree on a single set of maps.
But the new lines do not mean the end of the redistricting process, as Democrats continue pushing to overturn state congressional lines that helped Republicans flip control of the US House last year.
The commission was empowered by a 2014 amendment to the state Constitution to handle redistricting after the 2020 Census.
That created an opening for Albany Democrats to use their legislative supermajorities to approve congressional and state Senate lines that were arguably favorable to their party ahead of the 2022 elections.
But Republicans sued, and the Court of Appeals – New York’s highest court – eventually agreed that the Democrat-approved maps violated the state Constitution, which did not specifically say Albany lawmakers could create their own maps.
A court-appointed special master then created new maps for Congress and the state Senate while the Assembly maps remained in place for the 2022 election because no one bothered to challenge them in time.
But the Assembly lines ended up getting tossed as well last fall after another round of litigation that resulted in a Manhattan Supreme Court ordering the commission to try again.
A series of public hearings in recent months eventually resulted in an Assembly map that has few differences from the one that passed the state Legislature last year with support from Republicans and Democrats members who voted to uphold the status quo in the lower chamber.