Kathy Hochul moves to change NY district map after SCOTUS ruling bans race-based gerrymandering

New York Governor Kathy Hochul has doubled down on working with the Democrat-controlled legislature to change the Empire State's redistricting process in the wake of a Supreme Court's decision that ruled using race in redistricting decisions was unconstitutional.

Hochul and the New York Democrats promised to respond to GOP redistricting efforts that started in Texas earlier last year. Both parties have been vying for an edge in the upcoming midterm elections in Congress.

"The Supreme Court has been chipping away at our elections for years. It is clearly carrying out Donald Trump’s will with this decision. New York has always led the fight for voting rights and we’ll lead again. I’m working with the Legislature to change New York’s redistricting process so we can fight back against Washington’s attempts to rig our democracy," Hochul wrote.

Others on the left have accused the court of "racism" for striking down a majority-black congressional district in Louisiana that had been drawn to make it a majority-black district. The 6-3 ruling struck down interpretations of the Voting Rights Act that had allowed for or sometimes even pushed for using race in congressional districting in an effort to use race as a determining factor for redistricting.

Although Hochul and New York Democrats said they would redistrict in response to Texas, they have not made much progress up until this point. In August, Hochul said she was "exploring with our leaders every option to redraw our state congressional lines as soon as possible," in response to Texas.

In 2014, New York passed a constitutional amendment that created the Independent Redistricting Commission, which took the sole responsibility out of the hands of the state legislature. That means that changing the process will take another constitutional amendment, which requires it to be passed by two separately elected versions of the legislature, as well as a majority of New York voters.

Justice Samuel Alito wrote the majority opinion, saying, "In sum, because the Voting Rights Act did not require Louisiana to create an additional majority-minority district, no compelling interest justified the State’s use of race in creating SB8. That map is an unconstitutional gerrymander, and its use would violate the plaintiffs’ constitutional rights."

"This Court should never have interpreted §2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to effectively give racial groups' an entitlement to roughly proportional representation,'" Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in a concurrence. "By doing so, the Court led legislatures and courts to 'systematically divid[e] the country into electoral districts along racial lines.' Today’s decision should largely put an end to this 'disastrous misadventure' in voting-rights jurisprudence."