The New York State Independent Redistricting Commission met Tuesday for the first time since state lawmakers gave first passage to a constitutional amendment that would reform the redistricting process, a move that signaled New York’s official entrance into the current round of redistricting wars.
The amendment, which seeks to allow mid-decade redistricting as soon as 2028 and restructure other aspects of the map-drawing process, would need to pass the Legislature again next year before being placed on the ballot on Election Day 2027 in order to impact the 2028 election.
Democratic Chair Ken Jenkins, the Westchester County executive, told reporters he was going to “wait and see” how the amendment is structured before determining whether he will vote for it, assuming it passes again, despite its public release, subsequent hours-long floor debates and ultimate passage in the state Legislature in early June.
Jenkins was critical of the state Legislature for basing a portion of its argument for an expansion of its own power over the process on chaos during the commission’s first go-round following the 2020 census. That process led to two years of legal battles in which the state Legislature drew its own maps that were struck down and replaced by congressional lines drawn by a special master for the 2022 midterms, only for the commission to draw another set of maps that was ultimately rejected and tweaked by the Legislature ahead of the 2024 election.
The amendment, if approved, would clear a path for the Legislature to draw its own maps in cases where the evenly divided commission deadlocks or other issues emerge.
“It was the first time around and there was not enough consideration given to that,” he said. “The challenges around getting funded appropriately, COVID makes a difference, and the way the lawsuits happened.”
Jenkins, however, appeared sympathetic to New York Democrats’ urgency in passing the amendment when it comes to President Donald Trump’s prompting of Republican-led legislatures to redraw maps to favor the GOP ahead of the 2026 midterms.
“In the big picture, when you see everyone isn’t playing the same fair way across the country, that’s a challenge too. That’s what I hear people reacting to from a legislative perspective, and we’ll see what the voters say in the end,” he said.
Republican Vice Chair and former Assemblyman Charles Nesbitt joined a long list of New York Republicans who are freed from Trump’s urgency in a safely blue state to critique the amendment process.
“We just have worked the kinks out, so I think any changes are premature. I think anything that takes the power away from the commission takes away from the intent of the creation of the commission,” he said, adding, “The reason for our being is to have representation in our elected officials who represent the population of our state, and the fairest way to do that is through this deliberative process.”