Controversial NY Assembly Redistricting Maps Tossed By Judges

NEW YORK CITY — New York's controversial partisan redistricting maps for the state Assembly should be tossed, a panel of appellate judges found Friday.

But the judges' order won't affect the upcoming Assembly primaries on June 28, unlike a previous decision for congressional and state Senate races that sent them to a later date — Aug. 23 — to give time for an outside expert to redraw them.

"The request for a delay of the 2022 assembly primary elections is denied in any event, because the redrawing and implementing of a new assembly map before a 2022 primary election delayed even until September is, at this late date, no longer feasible," the judges' order states.

The decision Friday is the latest development in what has shaped into a political earthquake for New York.

Democrats had redrawn redistricting maps to their favor, prompting a lawsuit.

Appellate judges in April effectively found maps for congressional districts and state Senate were illegally gerrymandered and tossed them. But they didn't touch the Assembly maps because of a technicality, which prompted another lawsuit.

In the meantime, an independent expert called a "special master" released new maps for congressional districts and state Senate races that threw New York's political world into further disarray.

Under the new maps, longstanding congressional Reps. Carolyn Maloney and Jerry Nadler are facing off in a District 12 that combines the Upper West Side and Upper East Side. And former mayor Bill de Blasio is among a smorgasbord of candidates vying for a District 10 that covers Lower Manhattan and a swath of Brooklyn from Park Slope to Borough Park.

Gavin Wax, the president of the New York Young Republican Club, who helped bring forward the Assembly suit, celebrated the judges' decision.

“Based on today’s decision by the Appellate Division, New Yorkers will not be subjected to ten years of unconstitutional representation,” he said in a statement.