Acting Steuben County News Today

We thought that the draft maps published Monday for New York’s congressional and state Senate districts drawn by Carnegie Mellon’s Jonathan Cervas for Acting Steuben County state Supreme Court Justice Patrick McAllister were excellent, but late Friday night the final maps became even better.

Jonathan Cervas, the nonpartisan Carnegie Mellon expert hired by Acting Steuben County state Supreme Court Justice Patrick McAllister to properly and fairly redraw New York’s congressional and state Senate districts — after Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and Gov. Hochul violated the state Constitution with their pro-Democrat gerrymandering — has done a fine job with the maps for both published yesterday.

Presented with a lawsuit challenging new district lines approved by the Legislature’s Democratic supermajority and signed by Gov. Hochul, Acting Steuben County state Supreme Court Justice Patrick McAllister closely read the state Constitution, which apparently no one in Albany had.

In the Friday morning paper, we pleaded for some principled person in New York to bring a lawsuit against the Assembly districts that sprung from the same unconstitutional process by Albany Democrats that produced hyperpartisan gerrymandered state Senate and congressional lines. Friday afternoon, Gary Greenberg, of Greene County just south of Albany, stood up.

After state courts in North Carolina and Ohio, and on Friday, in Maryland, deservedly dumped in the garbage highly gerrymandered congressional district plans drafted by partisan legislatures, Acting Steuben County state Supreme Court Justice Patrick McAllister must do the same thing here with the maps before him drawn by Albany’s Democratic supermajorities.