As goo-goos despair, a reform legislator says court-drawn lines are still the 'most likely outcome'

An editorial written by Capital discusses the looming release of LATFOR's redistricing lines and the possibility that Governor Cuomo will veto the redistricting proposal. According to Senator Gianaris, LATFOR's inability to propose district lines that are fair will likely necessitate court involvement.

This week, the lawmakers running the redistricting process are expected to reveal the lines they came up with. (A lawmaker told me they may release Assembly and Senate lines as soon as today, but not congressional ones.)

Governor Andrew Cuomo, who came up with a plan to create an independent redistricting body that went nowhere in the Republican-controlled State Senate, has promised to veto the legislature's lines, which would in turn trigger court involvement in the process. The question then would be whether the court would effectively seek to overhaul the legislature's lines in time to have them in place for next year's primaries, or merely tweak them in an effort to make them more "fair."

State Senator Michael Gianaris of Astoria, a longtime advocate for redistricting reform, still believes someone other than his legislative colleagues will end up drawing the district lines.

"I think the most likely outcome is that a court is going to determine the district lines," he told me. "The fact that Senate Republicans are purposely delaying the process, in an attempt to jam the courts with a plan that is unfair, is unlikely to work."

Read the full article here.