In one of his final speeches as president, Barack Obama famously said, “In America, politicians should not pick their voters; voters should pick their politicians. And this needs to be done across the nation, not just in a select few states. It should be done everywhere.”

Gerrymandering has altered the political makeup of our nation and our states. For decades, voting districts have been drawn to essentially guarantee victories for a chosen political party no matter who’s running. And this is a bipartisan problem. Red states gerrymander to skew electoral maps red and blue states gerrymander to skew electoral maps blue.

This was the case in New York.

Frustrated by the gerrymandering in the 2010 redistricting process, New York voters approved a state constitutional amendment creating an Independent Redistricting Commission (IRC) to try and produce fair and non-partisan maps.

Yet despite the constitutional amendment, state leaders used bureaucratic tricks and political games to gerrymander maps during New York’s redistricting process.

New York’s elected officials showed they weren’t willing to fight for fair maps, but the Empire Center was.

Supermajorities and political games

Empire Center’s first step in fighting for fair maps was ensuring the IRC was properly funded.

When then-Governor Andrew Cuomo withheld vital IRC funding for almost a year, the Empire Center’s partner organization, the Government Justice Center (GJC), filed a lawsuit to force the governor to properly fund the Commission. “It’s unconscionable that the Governor and the Legislature are making it necessary for a court to enforce this Constitutional mandate,” said GJC’s Executive Director Cameron Macdonald. The GJC’s lawsuit was successful, and the governor was forced to fund the IRC as constitutionally required.

Then, in January 2022, the IRC submitted its first set of maps to the Legislature—or rather, two sets of partisan maps from the Democratic and Republican Commissioners. The Legislature immediately dismissed both IRC maps which forced the IRC to submit a second set of maps. It was at that point that the Empire Center stepped in with its own maps.

Empire Center’s maps were drawn in full accordance with the Voting Rights Act; kept county, town, and city borders intact; were compact; and were politically neutral. Empire Center’s maps were also independently reviewed, evaluated, and endorsed by well-respected, non-partisan constitutional experts. As Tim Hoefer, Empire Center’s President and CEO said, “Redistricting is an inherently political process—but that does not mean it must be done to benefit self-interested politicians. The political well-being of New Yorkers has been sacrificed for career politicians for too long. The Empire Center maps ensure that citizens are fairly represented, and that’s it.” The Empire Center’s maps were even cited by FiveThirtyEight and the Center for Urban Research as exceeding fairness criteria.

Even though Empire Center’s maps proved that fair maps could be drawn in New York, the IRC failed to reach a consensus on their second set of maps which gave the legislature an opportunity to pass their own set of maps. With overwhelming Democratic majorities, Democrats quickly passed their gerrymandered maps and Gov. Hochul signed them into law.

However, in part due to the Empire Center sounding the alarm on New York’s gerrymandered maps, multiple New York citizens filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the legislature’s maps. When the case made its way to the state supreme court, the court (consisting of entirely Democrat-appointed Justices) ruled that the Legislature and Governor had overreached and thwarted the rule of law by acting before the IRC had met its mandate. The court then appointed a “Special Master” to draw fair, un-gerrymandered maps for the state.

The Empire Center wasted no time in submitting their proposed maps to the Special Master to serve as a resource for how un-gerrymandered maps could be drawn in the Empire State.

It paid off.

According to the Times Union, “The new maps [drawn by the Special Master] are viewed by political scientists to be far less favorable to Democrats than the one drawn by the party and approved by Gov. Kathy Hochul earlier this year.”

“Citizens have a constitutional right to electoral maps that fairly represent their communities,” said Hoefer. “Non-political, un-gerrymandered maps are not just theoretical, they are practical and possible. New Yorkers were nearly stuck with the most politically gerrymandered maps in the nation, and the least democratic representation. But thanks to a coalition of New Yorkers who cared, including the Empire Center, we were able to reverse the Legislature’s unconstitutional actions, preserving New Yorkers fundamental rights to fair elections and representation.”

Every election cycle, voters get to choose their government. But our democracy is only effective when the voters—not politicians—are in charge of it. Thankfully for New Yorkers, the Empire Center is ensuring just that.