As the State Legislature and the governor argue over how best to draw a new political map for New York State, a group of community leaders has filed a lawsuit asking a federal judge to take control of the contentious redistricting process.
The lawsuit, which names Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and legislative leaders as defendants, asserts that the officials’ effort to redraw Assembly, Senate and Congressional district boundaries to reflect the most recent census “has stalled and threatens to throw the state’s 2012 elections into a quagmire absent court intervention.”
The lawsuit, filed on Thursday in Federal District Court in Brooklyn, follows similar legal challenges in more than a dozen states that are also in the midst of the often-bitter process of redrawing districts. In New York, it is the first major face-off in what seems likely to devolve into a chaotic legal battle, as well as a major fight in the legislative session that will begin in January.
A task force is working on drawing a set of political maps for consideration by the Legislature. But Mr. Cuomo has said he would veto those maps, because the panel is not independent. He has called on the Legislature to approve his plan for an independent commission; it has declined.
In an interview this week, the Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, a Manhattan Democrat, sketched out what he said could be a compromise — an eight-member bipartisan commission, with equal representation for each party, that would be appointed by the Legislature but made up entirely of people who are not lawmakers. The Democratic and Republican leaders in the Assembly and Senate would each appoint two members who would have equal funding, access to data and control of the map-making process.
“I think that goes a long way toward reform,” Mr. Silver said. “It wouldn’t be a political advantage to anybody. Majorities cannot just draw districts to the exclusion and the detriment of the minorities.”
Scott Reif, a spokesman for the Senate majority leader, Dean G. Skelos, a Long Island Republican, did not comment on Mr. Silver’s proposal, but he said: “Senate Republicans remain committed to a redistricting process that is bipartisan, open and fair. We look forward to continuing our discussions with the governor and others to enact a plan that is in the best interest of all New Yorkers.”
A stalemate between Mr. Cuomo and the Legislature would probably wind up in court, but the stakes for a legal battle are high and the timeline is short: The state primary elections next year could be as early as June, because of separate litigation over New York’s compliance with a federal law meant to ensure that residents serving in the military overseas have enough time to return ballots and be counted.
Among the six plaintiffs in the new redistricting lawsuit are a district leader in Brooklyn, a pastor in Westchester County and a lawyer from the Finger Lakes region who is mulling a State Senate bid. Their complaint described New York’s usual redistricting process as “an exercise in partisan self-dealing and incumbent protection.”
It also criticized the task force for not acting quickly enough to comply with a new law — the legality of which Republicans are disputing — specifying that for the purpose of drawing districts, prisoners should be counted in their hometowns, and not in the communities where the correctional facilities are located. Many prisoners are from downstate but are incarcerated upstate.
Richard Mancino, the lawyer for the plaintiffs, said that “the system here in New York is broken” and that lawmakers were intent on perpetuating the status quo “where the incumbents pick who their voters are going to be.” He said the possibility of primary elections as early as June made it prudent to mount a legal challenge now, instead of waiting until the legislative task force released a draft of district lines.
“If you wait for a flawed product to come out of the current system that will neither be independent nor nonpartisan nor apparently in compliance with the law,” Mr. Mancino said, “you’re going to be stuck with something that just won’t work.”
Mr. Mancino is a partner at Willkie Farr & Gallagher, the New York City firm for which Mr. Cuomo’s father, former Gov. Mario M. Cuomo, is of counsel. The law firm said he was not involved in the case.
Spokesmen for the current Governor Cuomo, Mr. Skelos and Mr. Silver declined to comment on the lawsuit.
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Michael H. Drucker
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