Almost a decade ago, New York residents passed a referendum that took the redistricting process out of the smoke-filled political backrooms, and insisted that a bipartisan process be employed.
The Court of Appeals had thrown out the partisan lines drawn by Democrats and passed off the task of redrawing the lines to an independent special master.
To get even at the court, Senate Democrats made sure that they would change the composition of the Court of Appeals and then have the issue brought up again.
This is the reason they rejected an eminently qualified, moderate Democrat such as Hector LaSalle from Suffolk County, who would have been the state’s first Hispanic chief justice. Instead, they had Governor Hochul put in place the far-left justice, Rowan Wilson.
It was no surprise that Wilson thereafter appointed another liberal onto the case, and wound up ruling just recently that the special master’s redrawing was only good for last year’s election, and that the legislature can redraw the lines again to last for the next 10 years.
There is little doubt that the Democrats will go back to drawing the lines in a more partisan manner. Let’s see what happens going forward.
It’s just unfortunate that, due to their sheer overwhelming majority control of the legislature, the Democrats were able to circumvent the will of the people enshrined in the referendum years ago. Newsday had it right. The Dems should be ashamed.