Gov. Hochul Considers Redrawing New York’s Congressional Map After Trump Push in Texas

Gov. Kathy Hochul said Thursday she will look into redrawing New York’s 26 congressional districts, which comes as President Donald Trump is pushing Republicans in Texas to do the same.

The Democratic governor told reporters she will assess options for a mid-decade redistricting process — which would require significant legal maneuvering, if it could be done at all — if the Texas GOP follows through on Trump’s demand.

“We are following the rules,” Hochul said after an unrelated event in the Rochester suburbs. “But if there are other states that are violating the rules and going to try and give themselves an advantage, all I’ll say is I’m going to look at it closely with [House Minority Leader] Hakeem Jeffries.”

The governor’s comments came after Trump said Republicans could potentially win five additional seats with a new, heavily gerrymandered congressional map in Texas, leading California Gov. Gavin Newsom to threaten to redraw his deep-blue state’s map to favor Democrats in retaliation.

Jeffries, a Brooklyn Democrat, has been considering plans to redraw congressional districts in blue states, including New York, CNN reported earlier this week.

But that plan would face significant hurdles in New York, which currently has 19 Democrats and seven Republicans in the House of Representatives.

New York state’s constitution allows for new congressional districts to be redrawn once every decade, based on new population figures from the once-a-decade U.S. Census. The only caveat is if the districts are thrown out by the courts, whether it’s for a procedural error or some other constitutional violation.

State Senate Deputy Majority Leader Michael Gianaris, a Democrat from Queens, said lawmakers would be open to discussing their options when it comes to mid-decade redistricting. But he said it’s pretty clear the courts would have to step in first.

“As we look at the constitution, it seems to require a court order to reopen the process,” he said. “So someone would’ve to figure out how to bring a challenge that would result in a court overturning the existing lines.”

In 2022, New York’s Democrat-dominated Legislature stepped in to draw congressional and state legislative lines after a redistricting panel was deadlocked. The state lost a congressional district that year, based on population shifts in the then-new Census.

But the state Court of Appeals threw out that map after Republicans sued, ruling that lawmakers didn’t follow the proper process and violated the constitution’s ban on drawing districts to benefit a particular party — in this case, Democrats.

Democrats, in turn, sued and won on procedural grounds in 2024, forcing yet another new map where state lawmakers made relatively minor tweaks.

New York Independent Redistricting Commission

The Congressional District map released by the New York Independent Redistricting Commission on Feb. 15, 2024.

Meanwhile, the ban on political gerrymandering remains in effect in New York, which could cause problems for Democrats if they want to draw a new map that is more beneficial to their party.

Senate Republican Leader Rob Ortt, a Republican from the Buffalo area, accused Hochul of trying to cement Democratic rule in New York and “stop the America First agenda that a strong majority of voters support.”

“Kathy Hochul and Albany Democrats are experts at rigging the rules to protect their power and silence voters,” Ortt said in a statement.

Jeff Wice, director of the New York Elections, Census and Redistricting Institute at New York Law School, said it’s true that the state constitution doesn’t allow for mid-decade redistricting, and that the state courts threw out a prior congressional map for gerrymandering.

But these days, you have to “expect the unexpected,” he said.

“Since Donald Trump assumed office, most norms and protocols have been thrown out the window,” he said. “I think that there are people in states who want to explore what their options are when you’re being confronted with going to a machine gun fight with a soft rubber knife.”

Hochul put it a different way. “All is fair in love and war,” she said.

“I’m not surprised that [Republicans] are trying to break the rules to get an advantage,” she said. “But that’s undemocratic, and not only are we calling them out, we’re also going to see what our options are.”

Story by Jon Campbell/New York Public News Network

Jon Campbell covers the New York State Capitol for WNYC and Gothamist.

Image: Gov. Kathy Hochul. (Credit: Mike Groll/Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office)