Judge Tosses N.Y. District Lines, Citing Democrats’ ‘Bias’

A New York State judge ruled on Thursday that Democrats had unconstitutionally drawn new congressional districts for partisan advantage, and he blocked their use in this year’s election, potentially throwing the midterm contests into turmoil.

In a sweeping ruling, Justice Patrick F. McAllister of State Supreme Court concluded that Democrats who control Albany had drawn the congressional lines for partisan advantage, violating a new constitutional prohibition on partisan gerrymandering adopted by New York voters.

Justice McAllister, a Republican in rural Steuben County, accused Democrats of embracing tactics they have denounced Republicans for using in order to create a map that gave them an advantage in 22 of 26 New York seats. He called such gerrymandering a “scourge” on democracy.

“The court finds by clear evidence and beyond a reasonable doubt that the congressional map was unconstitutionally drawn with political bias,” he wrote in the opinion.

The judge also tossed out fresh State Senate and Assembly districts that he said were the product of an irrevocably tainted mapmaking process. He ordered Democrats to come up with new “bipartisanly supported maps” by April 11.

If they fail, Justice McAllister said he would appoint an independent special master to draw them, raising the possibility that candidates already campaigning could be left in limbo for weeks, and that primaries scheduled for June could be delayed.

The ruling, which Democrats predicted would be overturned on appeal, was the latest setback for their party in what has become a high-stakes national redistricting battle that may help determine which party controls the House of Representatives next year.

Last week, a judge in Maryland ruled that district lines that would have given Democrats an advantage in at least seven of eight districts were an “extreme gerrymander” and gave lawmakers just a few days to attempt a new configuration. Just days earlier, the United States Supreme Court struck down a Wisconsin legislative map that would have created a new majority Black district. And it now appears that a new Ohio House map that heavily favors Republicans will stand for 2022, despite a state court ruling that declared it a partisan gerrymander.

Democrats view New York as perhaps the best opportunity for the party to use its unified control of a large blue state to flip a handful of congressional seats as it tries to stave off a Republican takeover of the House of Representatives this November.

The ruling in New York came on the same day that a federal judge in Florida decreed that portions of a year-old election law championed by Republicans there were unconstitutional and racially motivated. A judge in North Carolina has also already ruled against maps where Republican-led legislatures drew lines that clearly favored their party’s candidates.

For New Yorkers, the politically charged redistricting saga captured in Thursday’s ruling is what they had hoped to avoid when voters approved a constitutional amendment in 2014 to largely turn over the mapmaking process to a bipartisan outside commission like the ones used in some other states.

The commission began its work for the first time last year with considerable promise. But instead of removing partisanship from the process, as many had hoped, it became mired in it: Democratic and Republicans members this winter failed to agree on a single set of maps that they could formally recommend to state lawmakers in Albany for ratification.

That left Democrats — who control the governorship and supermajorities in both the State Senate and Assembly for the first time in decades — more or less free to draw maps of their choosing.

In February, they approved new congressional lines that could endanger as many as four current House Republicans, a greater shift than in any other state, by moving lines on Long Island, in New York City and upstate. The State Senate map promised similar Democratic advantages.

Justice McAllister took issue with that process, saying that Democratic lawmakers had effectively tried to alter the State Constitution and subvert the will of the voters by drawing maps unilaterally after the commission gave up. He stipulated that any replacements must be approved by bipartisan majorities, despite Democratic control in the capitol, or the courts would step in to set the lines.

Justice McAllister did not explicitly find the State Senate or Assembly maps to be unconstitutional gerrymanders. But he agreed with the plaintiffs that the congressional maps violated language in the 2014 amendment saying that districts “shall not be drawn to discourage competition” or to intentionally favor or hurt a particular candidate or political party.

“Gerrymandering discrimination hurts everyone because it tends to silence minority voices,” Justice McAllister wrote. “When we choose to ignore the benefits of compromise we not only hurt others, we hurt ourselves as well.”

In court, Democrats insisted that the changes are not only constitutional, but a natural outcome in a state where right-leaning rural areas are fast losing population and Democratic-friendly urban ones are growing. On Thursday, they said they were confident that higher courts would show deference to the Legislature and overturn Justice McAllister’s ruling.

In a joint statement, Gov. Kathy Hochul and Letitia James, the state attorney general, said that they would appeal the ruling promptly.

“This is one step in the process,” said Michael Murphy, a spokesman for the State Senate Democrats. “We always knew this case would be decided by the appellate courts.”

Democrats could challenge the ruling in either the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court or the State Court of Appeals — New York’s highest court, whose members were all appointed by Democrats. Analysts said that both venues would likely be more favorable to Democrats than rural Steuben County. Either way, their appeal will almost certainly result in a stay of Judge McAllister’s decision.

“The plaintiffs got what they wanted by going to court in Steuben County,” said Jeffrey Wice, an adjunct professor at New York Law School’s Census and Redistricting Institute. “Whether they carry their victory all the way to the State Court of Appeals is an uphill battle for them.”

Regardless of the ultimate ruling, Mr. Wice said it was highly unlikely that the higher courts would suspend this year’s election calendar, as Justice McAllister suggested in his ruling. The period for potential candidates in New York to collect petitions to qualify to run in the new districts is scheduled to end next week. Restarting the process would be costly and chaotic.

The plaintiffs in the case were voters across the state, but their lawsuit was financed and supervised by Republicans in Albany and Washington who sued almost as soon as Ms. Hochul signed the new maps into law in February.

Republicans, who have made stopping New York’s new maps a top national priority, celebrated the ruling on Thursday and predicted they would prevail on appeal.

But it was not strictly partisans who were pleased with the outcome. Jeremy M. Creelan, who helped draft the 2014 constitutional amendment as an aide to then-Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, said that Thursday’s ruling should quiet critics who argued the changes were entirely ineffectual.

“It’s clear that the constitutional amendment served the critical reform function that was intended,” he said.