New York state’s intention to weed out political gerrymandering and vote dilution in its decennial redistricting mapmaking process, was supposed to be through an independent bipartisan state commission. Because of a 2014 amendment in the state’s constitution, the 10-person New York Independent Redistricting Commission (NYIRC) is tasked with handling federal and state district lines in an effort to depoliticize the redistricting process that takes place every 10 years after the census.
However, when the NYIRC failed to reach consensus on future maps for the next decade and instead released competing maps in September — a congressional map designed by Democrat- and Republican-leaning members of the board — it left many Bronxites and elected officials with a familiar distaste for a process that has been criticized for political erasure of minorities and creating mismatched congressional constituencies throughout the Five Borough area.
