New York's high court orders new congressional districts, potentially flipping US House

The New York State Court of Appeals ordered new congressional maps on Tuesday, giving the Democratic-dominated state Legislature a shot to approve districts more favorable to Democrats for the 2024 elections. If Democrats flip back the four seats they lost to Republicans in the 2022 election, it could help them win control of the House.

The high court's 4-3 opinion said the map drawn by a court-appointed special master in 2022 was meant to be temporary and the state's voter-approved independent redistricting panel should be given another chance to draw the congressional districts. 

The redistricting commission, with an even number of members appointed by each party, deadlocked in 2022. The Legislature then approved a map that could have given Democrats 22 of the state's 26 House seats, but the Court of Appeals threw it out on procedural grounds. The map drawn by the court's special master resulted in Democrats winning 15 seats; Republicans won 11, including in six districts won by President Joe Biden in 2020.

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Next year, Democrats "might have won two or three of those Biden districts back anyway — now it might be five or six," said Dave Wasserman, an elections analyst with the Cook Political Report, told The New York Times. "When you are talking about such a narrow majority in the House, obviously that's a big deal."

The court gave the redistricting commission until Feb. 28 to produce a new map. If it can't agree on one, the Democratic and Republican members can submit two maps. Either way, the Legislature gets final approval, and it can draw its own districts if lawmakers vote down two attempts by the commission.

New York Republicans criticized the court's ruling and vowed to challenge any map they think is a partisan gerrymander, prohibited in the state Constitution. Democrats said the ruling returned power to representatives elected by the people of New York. 

New York isn't the only state where district lines are being redrawn. 

In North Carolina, a new Republican majority on the state Supreme Court gave a green light for the Republican-controlled Legislature to draw a "potent gerrymander" that "will all but guarantee the GOP picks up three or four seats there," Politico reports. On the other hand, Democrats will likely flip a seat in Alabama after the Supreme Court threw out two GOP-drawn maps on the grounds they illegally diluted the power of Black voters. Similar cases are pending in other Southern states.