New Assembly maps head to state legislature with few changes to current lines
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The New York Independent Redistricting Commission approved a final set of Assembly district lines to send to the legislature for approval on Thursday, April 20, 2023. Map via Redistricting & You/CUNY Graduate Center
By Ryan Schwach
The New York Independent Redistricting Commission voted 9-1 on Thursday to send a new set of Assembly district maps over the legislature, whose own maps were struck down in court last year.
But despite having submitted a draft map that proposed making a number of major changes to districts throughout New York and in Queens, the final maps submitted for approval Thursday vary little from the maps the Democratic lawmakers drew last spring.
The maps are the result of a long and strenuous process that has seen partisan squabbles within the commission, which prevented them from meeting their constitutionally-mandated deadline to turn in a final set of maps early last year. After the deadline was missed, lines were drawn by Democratic state lawmakers and later struck down in court by a judge who deemed that the lawmakers had both violated the state’s constitution by enacting their own maps and illegally gerrymandered districts throughout New York.
The new maps, which will now make their way to the state legislature once again, do not deviate much from current maps, which were drawn by lawmakers and struck down by a court that ordered the lines to be used in last year’s election and replaced by the commission’s map for elections throughout the remainder of the decade.
Statewide, a quarter of the districts in the state – 38 districts – are exactly the same as the maps that were deemed unconstitutional, according to Steven Romalewski of the CUNY Graduate Center, who studies redistricting and compiles the maps into the NYS: Redistricting & You resource.
Another 58 of the districts are 99 to 100 percent the same, according to Romalewski. Overall, two-thirds of the map is identical to the old.
They do, however, renege on many of the suggested changes in the NYIRC’s last draft, including a change that would unite the South Asian and Indo-Caribbean communities in South Queens.
“Overall disappointing,” said Aaron Ferndando, an advocate for that community who is among the petitioners in an ongoing lawsuit to redraw City Council lines to better unite those groups.
“After the IRC nailed it last time they decided to do a complete 180,” he told the Eagle.
On Feb. 16, the commissioners heard testimony from Queens locals on the previous drafts at York College, and over a dozen advocates spoke in strong support of the lines, which included a new District 24 that would have united the historically split South Asian community.
The new lines split those communities up into four different districts.
“Very surprising,” said Ferndando. “Richmond Hill and South Ozone Park will be disenfranchised for the next decade.”
NYIRC Commissioner Ross Brady, the only one of the 10 members of the commission to vote not to approve the lines, said the final version of the maps did not do enough to listen to some groups.
“I believe after looking at this that we skewed too slavishly to over already drawn legislative lines,” he said. “That being said, there was testimony in favor of legislative lines, or at least the lines that people had been used to, because there was an election and there's a need for finality. But in several instances, in several places, I think we kind of pulled the football away, to use an analogy, from groups such as Southeast Asians in Queens
“I cannot in good conscience vote for this plan,” he added.
The other nine commissioners who all voted in favor of the proposed maps, spoke of hard work done by the commission.
“This process has been going on, from appointment, over three years ago,” said Commissioner Charlie Nesbitt. “Many precedents have been set and developed as we have gone through this process. None of them more important than the one that we set today as we deliver a single map to the legislature for its consideration. This is all evidence of hard work by not just the members of the commission but by our staff as we traveled across this state, making 12 stops, all of them well supported and arranged by our staff.”
“Certainly most important, thank you for the public input because it truly made a difference in the way we approached the development of this map that we present today,” he added.
Looking at the new proposal laid over the ones drawn by the legislature last year, few lines are different. Some lines around Elmhurst and Sunnyside are slightly shifted, but most of Eastern and Southeastern Queens remain virtually untouched.
Not everyone is unhappy with the lack of changes in district lines.
The neighborhoods of Rego Park and Forest Hills in Central Queens remain relatively untouched, a far cry from the last draft, which would have had them included on a massive district ranging from Rego Park to Long Island City.
“The last draft created this district that seemed to break all the rules of redistricting,” Heather Beers-Dimitriadis, the chair of Community Board 6 and the co-director of the Central Queens Redistricting Coalition.
In February, Beers-Dimitriadis and others argued against the Rego Park to Long Island City district because none of those communities share commonalities.
“The new lines are an improvement,” she told the Eagle on Thursday. “Rego Park remains broken into multiple districts, and we would have kept it whole. But yes, this is better overall.”
As for the long, drawn out process resulting in minimal changes,” Beers-Dimitriadis said she is ready to move forward.
“At some point we have to put all this to rest,” she said. “The constant changes create too much confusion when it comes to engagement.”
“It didn’t have to be like this, this has truly dragged on too long,” she added.
The new maps will now go back to the legislature, and considering how close they are to the maps they themselves drew, it is likely that they will be approved. It is however, unknown what kind of legal issues might pop up, since the legislative maps were shot down, partially due to alleged gerrymandering.
