{"id":11662,"date":"2025-07-24T19:18:06","date_gmt":"2025-07-24T19:18:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/new-yorks-kathy-hochul-opens-the-door-to-redrawing-house-lines\/"},"modified":"2025-07-24T19:18:06","modified_gmt":"2025-07-24T19:18:06","slug":"new-yorks-kathy-hochul-opens-the-door-to-redrawing-house-lines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/new-yorks-kathy-hochul-opens-the-door-to-redrawing-house-lines\/","title":{"rendered":"New York\u2019s Kathy Hochul opens the door to redrawing House lines"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

ALBANY, New York \u2014 Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul is not ruling out a mid-decade redrawing of New York\u2019s House lines, as deep red Texas and Ohio move to reshape their maps through redistricting.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll\u2019s fair in love and war. We\u2019re following the rules. We do redistricting every 10 years,\u201d Hochul said during an unrelated event Thursday in Buffalo. \u201cBut if there\u2019s other states violating the rules and are trying to give themselves an advantage, all I\u2019ll say is, I\u2019m going to look at it closely with Hakeem Jeffries.\u201d<\/p>\n

The governor\u2019s comments are her first since Republican Gov. Greg Abbott announced a special session<\/a> of the Texas Legislature to focus on redistricting. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries<\/a>\u2019 team spoke with Hochul\u2019s office about redistricting earlier this month following Abbott\u2019s announcement, according to two people with direct knowledge of the conversation, granted anonymity to discuss the closed-door talks.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not surprised that they\u2019re trying to break the rules to get an advantage,\u201d Hochul added. \u201cBut that\u2019s undemocratic, and not only are we calling them out, we\u2019re also going to see what our options are.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jeffries, in a podcast interview<\/a> Monday, said Democrats should keep Republicans politically \u201con the run.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m in conversation with members of the New York delegation, as well as the governor, to explore what, if anything else, can be done to ensure that New York does its part with respect to fair maps across the country,\u201d Jeffries said. \u201cAnd every single state is going to have to do the same thing because Republicans are desperate.\u201d<\/p>\n

The potential tit-for-tat move by blue New York would be a heavy lift before the midterm elections \u2014 and would almost certainly be subject to legal challenges. The state\u2019s constitution stipulates redistricting may only be done once a decade and should be based on the most recent census data.<\/p>\n

The governor’s remarks drew a rebuke from statehouse Republicans. <\/p>\n

“Kathy Hochul and Albany Democrats are experts at rigging the rules to protect their power and silence voters,” state Senate Minority Leader Robert Ortt said. <\/p>\n

A speedy redistricting of New York\u2019s House lines would be an unlikely bank shot.<\/p>\n

Legal challenges forced New York\u2019s redistricting commission to redraw the state\u2019s House map, which was finalized in early 2024<\/a>. A court order following another legal challenge to the existing House map could once again reopen that process. But such a development would require an extremely tight turnaround to redraw the map ahead of the 2026 elections.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, will Texas redraw its map, and will California then follow? Expect the unexpected,\u201d said Jeff Wice, a redistricting expert and professor at New York Law School. \u201cWe\u2019re really in uncharted waters.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hochul\u2019s comments Thursday underscore the stakes of the coming elections in the narrowly divided House. Despite its Democratic domination, New York is home to several swing seats that could determine control of the chamber \u2014 and the final two years of President Donald Trump\u2019s term.<\/p>\n

Hochul is also echoing the comments from other blue state governors who have threatened their own retaliatory redistricting efforts. In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom has raised the possibility<\/a> of throwing out his state\u2019s maps and drawing boundaries to aid Democratic chances next year. Former President Barack Obama will headline a fundraiser<\/a> for a Democratic redistricting group in response to the red states\u2019 efforts.<\/p>\n

Hochul\u2019s political allies, though, believe there is little upside to drawing new lines.<\/p>\n

\u201cI understand those in New York who are watching what\u2019s happening in Texas and Ohio want to offset their unfair advantage,\u201d New York Democratic Chair Jay Jacobs told Blue Light News earlier this week. \u201cBut I think we need to be careful about democracy, because I\u2019m finding it to be pretty fragile at this time in our history.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jacobs added the state constitution ties his party\u2019s hands.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t change the rules of the game to your advantage just because you can,\u201d Jacobs said. \u201cThe constitution seems pretty clear that this redistricting process should be done every 10 years. I don\u2019t know where someone could interpret it as something you can do every two years.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ALBANY, New York \u2014 Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul is not ruling out a mid-decade redrawing of New York\u2019s House lines, as deep red Texas and Ohio move to reshape their maps through redistricting. \u201cAll\u2019s fair in love and war. We\u2019re following the rules. We do redistricting every 10 years,\u201d Hochul said during an unrelated event […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11662"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11662\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}