What Redistricting Looks Like In Every State

On April 27, the New York Court of Appeals struck down the congressional redistricting map previously enacted by the legislature, requiring the map be redrawn with the assistance of a neutral expert, Jonathan Cervas. On May 16, Cervas released a first draft of his proposed map, giving interested parties two days to comment before the final draft is submitted May 20.

Cervas’s map would have an efficiency gap of D+5 and create 16 Democratic-leaning seats, five Republican-leaning seats and five highly competitive seats. This is an increase of two highly competitive seats, a decrease of one Democratic-leaning seat and a decrease of two Republican-leaning seats compared with the old map. The Republican plaintiffs in the court case have also submitted suggested revisions to Cervas’s map, which would take away one Democratic-leaning seat and one highly competitive seat, and add two Republican-leaning seats, including one in New York City. Their map would have an efficiency gap of R+1.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee had sought to keep the previously approved map in place by filing a lawsuit in federal court on behalf of New York voters, arguing that the state’s primary had to take place on June 28 as scheduled, citing a previous federal order. However, on May 10, a federal judge affirmed moving the primary to Aug. 23 in order to accommodate the ongoing redistricting process, likely leaving the state court’s ruling in place.

The now-overturned map was designed to give Democrats a huge advantage in the state and was largely approved along partisan lines in the legislature. The map had an efficiency gap of D+9 and created 20 Democratic-leaning seats, only four Republican-leaning seats and two highly competitive seats (both of which tilted toward Democrats themselves).

New York wound up with such an egregiously biased map only because of the weakness of New York’s new bipartisan redistricting commission. Under state law, the legislature may simply draw its own map after rejecting the commission’s first two proposals. Even worse, the commission didn’t even work as intended. Its first proposal was actually two maps (one favoring Democrats and one favoring Republicans), and it failed to come to any agreement on a second-round proposal, handing redistricting control to the legislature by default.

Several interested parties had also submitted their own plans to the court for his consideration. New York Democrats have proposed a map that is similar to their overturned map. Three other proposed maps have efficiency gaps ranging from D+3 to D+5.Five other map proposals, including one from the Republican plaintiffs in the case, have efficiency gaps ranging from R+2 to R+7. However, Cervas was under no obligation to heed these maps.