New York
Fight over gerrymandering moves to state’s highest court
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — The fight for control of the U.S. House moves to New York’s highest court on Tuesday, where judges will determine whether Democrats illegally gerrymandered the boundaries of the state’s newly redrawn congressional districts.
New York’s Court of Appeals is expected to hear arguments in a lawsuit brought by a group of Republican voters challenging the legality of the new district maps.
The suit says the Democrat-controlled Legislature violated provisions in the state constitution that barred the redrawing of districts for partisan gain.
New York’s governor and legislative leaders deny that they bent the rules, but two lower courts have already ruled that the district maps were drafted specifically to give Democrats an advantage.
A midlevel appeals court last week gave the Legislature a deadline of April 30 to come up with revised maps, or else leave the redrafting in the hands of a court-appointed expert.
A third ruling against the maps could potentially upend the state’s planned congressional primary, now scheduled for late June.
The Court of Appeals is expected to make a decision as soon as this week.
The legal fight in New York could play an important role in the battle for control of the U.S. House, where Democrats now enjoy a thin majority.
Political district maps across the nation have been redrawn in recent months as a result of population shifts documented in the 2020 Census.
Democrats had been counting on New York lawmakers producing a map heavily favorable to their party to help offset expected Republican gains in other states.
New York’s new maps would give Democrats a strong majority of registered voters in 22 of the state’s 26 congressional districts. Republicans, who represent about 22% of registered New York voters, currently hold eight of the state’s 27 seats in Congress. New York will lose one seat in 2021.
Partisan gerrymandering of political district maps is an age-old tradition in the U.S., but New York voters attempted to limit the practice through a constitutional amendment in 2014.
The new maps were initially supposed to have been drawn by an independent commission, but that body, made up of equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans, couldn’t reach consensus, allowing the Legislature to step in.
So far this election cycle, courts have intervened to block maps they found to be Republican gerrymanders in North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania, and a Democratic gerrymander in Maryland. Such decisions have led to delayed primaries in North Carolina, Ohio and Maryland.
Nevada
U.S. judge: Inmate’s execution challenge may be moot
LAS VEGAS (AP) — A federal judge in Las Vegas said Monday he’ll decide in three weeks whether to dismiss a condemned Nevada killer’s lawsuit challenging the state’s plan for his lethal injection, because the state doesn’t have one of the drugs it would use.
U.S. District Judge Richard Boulware II acknowledged during a brief hearing with attorneys for the state and the inmate, Zane Michael Floyd, that key questions about the execution method remain unanswered following weeks of testimony late last year.
But the Nevada Department of Corrections supply of the sedative ketamine expired on Feb. 28, and Randall Gilmer, chief deputy state attorney general, said prison officials have been unable to get more.
The prison execution method, or protocol, calls for using large doses of three or four drugs also including the potent synthetic opioid fentanyl or a substitute, alfentanil, possibly a muscle paralytic called cisatracurium and either potassium chloride or potassium acetate to stop Floyd’s heart.
Boulware said the question before him might have become moot.
“There is no foreseeable likelihood that NDOC would be able to obtain one of the main drugs in the protocol,” Boulware said, adding that there also is no current warrant for Floyd’s death.
State law calls for two weeks’ notice to schedule an execution, and for executions to be by lethal injection.
“At this point, the court is not inclined to find that there is a live issue,” Boulware said. He asked for written arguments from the state and Floyd’s attorneys by May 16.
Floyd, 46, was convicted in 2000 of killing four people and wounding a fifth in a shotgun attack at a Las Vegas grocery store. He does not want to die.
Daryl Mack was the last inmate put to death in Nevada, in April 2006, for a 1988 rape and murder in Reno. Mack asked for his lethal injection to be carried out.
Deputy federal public defenders David Anthony and Brad Levenson have tried to show Boulware that the never-before-used combination of drugs the state wants to use would cause Floyd so much pain that it would be unconstitutionally cruel and inhumane.
Alabama
Hearing set in effort to block transgender law
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — A federal judge will hear arguments next month on whether to block enforcement of an Alabama law outlawing the use of gender-affirming medications to treat transgender people under age 19.
The May 5 hearing is scheduled just days before the law is set to take effect on May 8.
U.S. District Judge Liles Burke set the evidentiary hearing, scheduled to last up to two days, on a request for a temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction to stop Alabama officials from enforcing the law while a court challenge goes forward.
The Alabama law will make it a felony, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, for medical providers to give puberty blockers and hormones to transgender people under age 19 to help affirm their gender identity.
Four families with transgender children, two doctors and a member of the clergy filed a lawsuit challenging the law as an unconstitutional violation of equal protection and free speech rights and an intrusion into parental decisions.
