Tedisco Calls for “NYS Gerrymander Failure Assistance Act” to provide local governments assistance with unfunded mandate of overseeing two primary elections

Senator Jim Tedisco (R,C-Glenville) recently announced he is introducing new legislation, the “NYS Gerrymander Failure Assistance Act” to ensure the state fully covers the unfunded mandate of additional financial costs local governments will be saddled with to oversee two primaries. 

 Tedisco, who has been an outspoken critic of the Cuomo/Hochul Administrations and the Senate Majority, was one of the top targets of their redistricting scheme, which originally took him out of a large portion of area he has represented and the current 49^th Senate District has historically contained, and into a primary with a fellow Senate Republican.  

 The New York State Court of Appeals this week ruled the map that placed Senator Tedisco in a primary, and the rest of the Senate and Congressional maps drawn up by the Majority and enthusiastically rubber-stamped by Governor Hochul, to be unconstitutional and tossed them.  

 A state Supreme Court Justice has appointed a special master to redraw the district lines for state Senate and Congress and set an August 23^rd primary date.  That primary will be in addition to the already scheduled June 28^th primary for candidates for Governor, Lt. Governor, state Assembly and county and local offices.

 This additional primary will create a significant new unfunded mandate and financial burden for counties to administer the elections.

 Senator Tedisco’s “NYS Gerrymander Failure Assistance Act,” which is being drafted, would direct the state of New York to pick-up all costs associated with the unfunded mandate of a new August 23^rd primary for state Senate and Congress. 

 “The Senate Majority and the Governor became so greedy and consumed with total power that they thought they could get away with anything, including a diabolical gerrymandering scheme to disenfranchise voters with hyper-partisan redistricting maps that would have attempted to silence the voices of many of our communities. Fortunately, the New York State Court of Appeals has ruled these maps to be unconstitutional and a court-appointed special master will now draw up what I hope to be much fairer lines that are consistent with constitutional guidelines,” said Senator Jim Tedisco.  

 “I’m introducing the ‘NYS Gerrymander Failure Assistance Act’ to ensure local taxpayers and our county governments are not saddled with another unfunded mandate by the state and forced to pay the tab for the failure of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to do the right thing in the first place when they created these terrible and unconstitutional redistricting maps,” Tedisco added.