Posts Tagged ‘Thomson Reuters’
A magistrate judge in charge of redrawing New York state’s congressional districts turned in a draft proposal on Tuesday, nearly a week ahead of schedule.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Roanne Mann’s redistricting proposal would eliminate one district in Queens and Brooklyn, which is represented by Republican Congressman Bob Turner, and another in New York’s Hudson Valley, represented by Rep. Maurice Hinchey. Hinchey, a Democrat, is retiring this year.
New York must redo its congressional maps to reflect population shifts identified in the 2010 census. The state is losing two of its 29 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Parties in a legal battle over redistricting have submitted proposals for redrawing New York state’s political maps to a Brooklyn federal magistrate.
The Democrat-dominated Assembly, the Republican-controlled Senate, and Assembly Minority Leader Brian Kolb on Wednesday handed in the maps to U.S. Magistrate Judge Roanne Mann, who is acting as a special master in a lawsuit challenging a legislative “impasse” over the redistricting process.
The Assembly, Senate and Kolb are defendants in the suit, Favors v. Cuomo, which was filed by a group of voters and community leaders in November.
Several dozen lawyers and scores of voters and political officials will appear in Brooklyn federal court on Monday to offer suggestions on how to redraw New York state’s political map.
The conference was scheduled last week after a judge denied a bid to dismiss a lawsuit brought by voters and community leaders, who had asked the court to intervene in the redistricting process.
“It’s going to be a circus,” said Juan Cartagena, an attorney at LatinoJustice PRLDEF, who represents a group of Latino voters involved the case.
New York, like other states, must redo its political maps in light of population shifts identified in the 2010 census.
A group of Republican state senators has decided to drop an appeal of a decision upholding a New York state law requiring prison inmates to be counted in their home communities for the purposes of redistricting, according to a spokesman for the lead plaintiff.
The group, led by Senator Betty Little, a Republican from Warren County, filed a lawsuit last year claiming the 2010 law was unconstitutional. The state senators, whose upstate districts include prisons, wanted to reinstate the old method of counting prisoners where they are incarcerated, a practice opponents call “prison gerrymandering.”
The New York Court of Appeals on Tuesday declined to hear a direct appeal of a ruling upholding the constitutionality of a state law requiring prison inmates to be counted as residents of their hometown for the purpose of drawing legislative boundaries.
The law, passed in 2010, requires all prisoners to be counted as residents of their home communities, not the town of their incarceration — a practice known as “prison gerrymandering.”
A group of Republican state senators brought a lawsuit challenging the law, arguing that it violated New York’s constitution. But in December, Supreme Court Justice Eugene Devine of Albany County rejected that claim and found the law was constitutional.
A federal judge has ordered a three-judge panel to step in and oversee a legal battle over New York state’s redistricting process.
In a decision issued Monday, U.S. District Judge Dora Irizarry in Brooklyn gave the panel authority to appoint a special master to draw up new congressional districts if a legislative stalemate over the drawing of the state’s political map continues.
NEW YORK, Nov 21 (Reuters) – A group of New York voters and civic leaders has sued to request that a federal court supervise the state’s congressional redistricting process, arguing that lawmakers’ partisan bickering “threatens to throw the state’s 2012 elections into a quagmire absent court intervention.”
The lawsuit, filed Thursday in Brooklyn federal court, also alleges that the population data used by the New York State Legislative Task Force on Demographic Research and Reapportionment, or LATFOR — which oversees the redrawing of New York’s congressional districts every decade — is improperly counting prisoners outside of their home residences.
ALBANY, N.Y., Oct. 4 (Reuters) – A group of nine Republican state senators challenging a new law that could dramatically change the balance of power in New York’s legislature made their case in an Albany court Tuesday.
Lawyers for the group argued before state Supreme Court Justice Eugene Devine that the law, which requires state prison inmates to be counted as residents of their hometowns for the purpose of redrawing legislative districts, is unconstitutional because it creates two separate census counts.
NEW YORK, Aug 22 (Reuters) – A group of 15 New York State voters has asked a judge to toss a case challenging the way prisoners are counted for redistricting purposes.
Earlier this month, Supreme Court Justice Eugene Devine allowed the voters to intervene as defendants in an action brought by upstate senators and some of their constituents. The suit sought to block a 2010 law that counts prisoners as residents of the community where they last lived, rather than where they are incarcerated.
NEW YORK, Aug 11 (Reuters) – A New York state judge has allowed a group of 15 individuals to take part in a lawsuit over where prisoners are counted for redistricting purposes.
The 15 people are supporters of a 2010 law that counts prisoners as residents of the communities where they lived before incarceration instead of the communities where they are detained.
