NEW YORK – Community activists and lawmakers traveled to a rural courthouse Friday in western New York to weigh in on the shape of the state’s political district maps and to ask a judge for more opportunities for the public to be heard.
The state judge overseeing the redrawing of New York’s state Senate and Congressional districts has scheduled only one public hearing on the matter before the maps are finalized on May 20.
Anyone who wanted to speak publicly on the issue could file something with the court in writing or appear in person Friday in Judge Patrick McAllister’s courtroom in Bath, New York, about 60 miles (97 kilometers) south of Rochester.
The court is working on an adjusted timeline to finish the maps after the state’s supreme court ruled that earlier versions crafted by the Democrat-controlled legislature were unconstitutional.
Jonathan Cervas, a postdoctoral fellow at Carnegie Mellon University’s Institute for Policy and Strategy, has a May 16 deadline to publish his first draft of the replacement maps.
“We urge you to have more hearings, particularly after the map is released,” Esmeralda Simmons, pro bono special counsel for Medgar Evers College’s Center for Law and Social Justice, said at Friday’s hearing. “We want you to know that New Yorkers deserve to be heard and will want to be heard.”
Earlier this week, McAllister rejected requests to allow people to testify at the hearing remotely, saying his court lacked the capacity to allow large numbers of people to do so.
“Unfortunately, I am unable to provide a remote option that allows everyone across the state to come forward and comment,” the judge wrote in a May 3 letter to New York Civic Engagement Table director Melody Lopez. “But, a person can appear and testify in person.”
The judge said the court will review records from hearings held by the state’s independent redistricting commission last fall.
That commission’s effort to redraw political district lines, required every 10 years, collapsed due to partisan gridlock.
The Legislature then approved its own maps without any public input or hearings like the one the judge held on Friday.
Ángel Vásquez, a Democrat running for state Senate in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, urged the court to consider some of the committee’s dismissed proposals.
The court ordered that the state’s primary elections for the state Senate and the US House of Representatives be moved to August 23, from their originally scheduled date of June 28, to allow enough time to redraw the maps. State officials have asked a federal judge to approve the change.
On Wednesday, former Democratic candidate Gary Greenberg filed a lawsuit asking McAllister to scrap and order new state Assembly maps and delay Assembly races to Aug. 23 as well.
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