Last year, New York’s highest court invalidated the state's congressional map drawn by Democrats, citing the leaders' attempts to gerrymander the districts.
The New York State Court of Appeals ruled in a 4-3 decision in April 2022 that the Democrats violated anti-gerrymandering reforms enacted in 2014 to protect minority voting rights, finding evidence that the “congressional map was unconstitutionally drawn with political bias.”
REPUBLICAN PRIMARY: BIG TENT OR BIG TOP?
Democrats are now arguing again in favor of redrawing maps, saying the new maps held an unfair factor in the New York red wave last year.
Attorneys commissioned by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee argued before an Albany appeals court on Thursday, hoping to revive the redrawn congressional lines case.
In a major loss for the Democrats last year, the court ordered an outside expert to redraw a new map before the 2022 elections. The messy redistricting process helped Republicans flip four House congressional seats.
One of the biggest gains for New York Republicans was the defeat of the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, former Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, who was defeated by Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) in the 17th District.
The lawsuit includes 10 New York voters as plaintiffs, and it will most likely head to the Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court, before the election cycle.
Attorneys are arguing that the redrawn map last year was a rushed product. They pointed out that the Court of Appeals never agreed to a time frame for how long the new map should remain in place, as reported in City and State New York.
"And so here we are with no statement as to duration, so awkward as it is for this court to be inferring, and you heard me ask the appellant’s counsel, that's what we're asked to do is to infer and look at the text of the law,” Justice Elizabeth Garry said on Thursday, appearing to be willing to hear the argument regarding time.
The attorney backing the Republican defendant argued against this point, saying the maps should remain in place until a new census is taken. The census is taken every 10 years.
“The Constitution says that any map lawfully adopted is a 10-year map, so it wasn't in dispute in Harkenrider," attorney Misha Tseytlin said regarding the reasoning in Harkenrider v. Hochul, the case last year that resulted in the newly redrawn map.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Ahead of the 2024 elections, Democrats are hoping to take back the seats they lost to the GOP in the midterm elections. The House Majority PAC announced in February plans to launch the New York Fund program to provide $45 million to New York Democrats competing in the 2024 election.
In a record-breaking contribution for a single state, the PAC said it hopes to elect Democrats to “5 seats to elect Leader Hakeem Jeffries the next Speaker of the House.”