Top court blows up New York's election

Daily Point

Redistricting ruling's unclear lines

The sweeping Court of Appeals ruling on the gerrymandering of New York’s congressional maps leaves unanswered a few logistical and political questions that could change the dynamics of races up and down the ballot.

It’s a cluster-whatever right now with little clarity for what comes next.

The top court did not choose a new primary date for the congressional and State Senate seats, suggesting August to give a special master time to draw the new lines. The ruling only said that the trial court judge should consult with the state Board of Elections to ensure a smooth process. And throwing another twist into the timeline, Marc Elias, an election lawyer for the national Democratic Party, is saying that under a federal court order, the House primary must be held in June unless the legislature acts and sets a timely date that allows for military and overseas ballots to be received.

And there is some talk in the State Legislature about preempting the court by passing a new election law determining the primary dates, whether candidates have to petition again to get on the primary ballot, and how many signatures will be needed. Does the state, for example, reinstate the lower number of signatures it used in the last two elections because of COVID-19?

So it’s uncertain Wednesday night whether there will be two primaries in New York or one — June for the governor and the other statewide races and the Assembly, and August for the congressional and State Senate races? Although the Assembly maps were not ruled invalid, it seems odd that one chamber would be on the ballot two months after the other. In a statement late Wednesday, the state election board said that while it was reviewing the ruling, it did not foresee a change in the June 28 date for any races except House and State Senate.

And if the congressional districts are illegal, why wouldn’t the petitions filed by statewide officials also be undermined? To get on the ballot for governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general and comptroller, candidates need to collect valid signatures in 50% of the state’s congressional districts. But the appeals court ruled that those very districts were illegally drawn.

If those petitions were to be deemed invalid, it’s possible that Kathy Hochul now may be able to jettison Brian Benjamin, her former lieutenant governor who resigned after his indictment, from the primary ballot.

So far the legislature has resisted her request to do so by amending the law that allows a candidate to be removed from the ballot on the grounds that it would change the rules in the middle of the process. The appeals court just upended the process so they would have some cover.

If it turns out that two primaries are held, Rep. Tom Suozzi, who declined to seek reelection to Congress, could have the opportunity to change his mind about going back to Washington. He could make the decision to run for both offices and if he lost the June primary for governor, he would still be on the August ballot for his old House seat in CD3. That is what Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney did after losing the Democratic primary for attorney general in 2018, a year when there were two primaries.

— Rita Ciolli @ritaciolli

Pencil Point

For what?

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Final Point

As Nassau went, so goes the state

The best-known friend-of-the-court brief in the legal uproar over redistricting in New York, which ended when the state’s top court ordered maps redrawn, came from the New York chapter of the nonpartisan League of Women Voters, which opposed the Democratic State Legislature’s redrawn maps for 2022 as an illegal gerrymander.

But another amicus brief of relevance filed in the case focused on the argument that the exact precedent for voiding all the House and State Senate districts comes from Nassau County in the last reapportionment cycle.

It was filed by veteran GOP election specialist John Ciampoli on behalf of three upstaters, including Republican State Senators Edward Rath III and Thomas O’Mara. And Ciampoli even gives the brief a bit of a musical theme, citing an old Jackson 5 super-hit to say that resolving this case is “easy as ABC, 1,2,3.”

Which is to say: The Nassau Legislature a decade ago violated a prescribed three-step process for drawing lines that fatally skipped the second step — submission of a plan by a specially appointed commission to the full body, for a vote. That’s on point to what was at stake statewide, where the Independent Redistricting Commission failed by a January deadline to send lawmakers a plan they could accept or reject. Instead, the State Legislature went straight to Step 3 — approving districts created by their own mapmakers.

In the Nassau case, the legislature’s Democratic majority leader Diane Yaturo opposed GOP County Executive Ed Mangano. Just as the state had, the county had created a bipartisan commission, called an advisory panel, which was disregarded at the time.

The state’s top court, however, did not cite its 2011 ruling in Yaturo v. Mangano as precedent.

— Dan Janison @Danjanison