Source: Steven Ahle
The New York Plan to try to save the House for the Democrats has failed after an appeals court has upheld a lower court ruling that the map drawn by the legislature was unconstitutional because it was accomplished by partisan gerrymandering. Had it been allowed to stand, it would have cut the number of Republican seats from 8 to 4 at best and could have been even lower. The case will now face one more appeal before the ruling is finalized.
The courts in Maryland and Wisconsin have already thrown out the maps constructed in those states due to extreme gerrymandering. The original map drawn for Florida by Democrats gave them an advantage, but in order to do so, they created districts that were misshapen messes, with one stretching over 200 miles in length. A new map was drawn by Gov. Ron DeSantis and the legislature approved the map, erasing the left leaning attempt by Democrats and RINOs.
The court declared that the map violated the NY constitution, which says that congressional maps "shall not be drawn to discourage competition or for the purpose of favoring or disfavoring incumbents or other particular candidates or political parties."
The court based its decision on three factors:
- "[D]emocratic leaders in the legislature drafted the 2022 congressional redistricting map without any [R]epublican input, and the map was adopted by the legislature without a single [R]epublican vote in favor of it."
- "[U]nder the 2012 congressional map there were 19 elected [D]emocrats and 8 elected [R]epublicans and under the 2022 congressional map there were 22 [D]emocrat-majority and 4 [R]epublican-majority districts."
- Third, the court agreed with the expert testimony of political analyst Sean Trende, who testified that it was "implausible, if not impossible" that the map was drawn without partisan intent.
Michael Li, senior counsel for the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice said:
"Like other state courts around the country, New York courts aren't finding the question of whether a map is a partisan gerrymander a particularly hard one to decide. It's very hard to defend a map like New York's, and ultimately if it quacks like a duck, it probably is a duck."
The states that gerrymandered in favor of Democrats would not have saved the Democratic majority, but they were hoping to cut their losses in a year best described as a red tsunami.
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