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The Onondaga County Legislature will redraw its legislative district maps by the 2025 local elections after the state supreme court on Friday ordered the county legislature to redraw the maps.

Christopher Ryan, the legislature’s Democratic minority leader, announced the plan in a Tuesday afternoon press conference outside of Onondaga County Courthouse. Other local prominent Democrats, including Syracuse City Auditor Alexander Marion and 15th District Legislator Maurice “Mo” Brown, also attended the conference.

The decision to redraw the county’s legislative districts is the result of a 2022 lawsuit that several local Democrats brought up against the county that alleged the Republican-led legislature gerrymandered the districts the year prior.

Ryan called on County Legislature Chairman Tim Burtis and Majority Leader Brian May, both Republicans, to engage in transparent discussions about the redistricting process moving forward. He said he wants the new plan to achieve unanimous bipartisan support. The 2021 map was approved in a 9-8 vote along party lines.

“We need to make maps that we are proud of — that resembles our county as a whole,” Ryan said.

Onondaga County’s election districts have been a concern among Democratic leaders since the 2011 redraw, Ryan said. During the conference, he referenced a syracuse.com article from 2011 that critiqued the “weird” shapes of the proposed districts, saying they resemble “crustaceans” and “brass knuckles.”

In 2020, Ryan attempted to introduce a reapportionment advisory committee ahead of the next redrawing of district maps, he said, but his proposal was struck down. He claimed the subsequent proposal disrupted communities and “diluted” minority populations’ voting power. The 2021 map split the former legislative District 16, an area with a majority Black population, into multiple districts.

The timeline for the redrawing efforts is “ambiguous,” Ryan said, as the city has not finalized plans for the required meetings and public hearings. County legislators are divided on how to approach the redistricting. Burtis told WRVO the maps will only require small adjustments, while Ryan said Democrats want to completely “reset” the districts during Tuesday’s conference.

Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon, a Republican, wrote in a statement to NewsChannel 9 that Republicans expect to make “minor adjustments” to district lines to honor the agreement between both parties.

Democrats sued the county legislature in 2022 on the grounds that the districts did not accurately represent census data. In 2020, New York passed legislation that mandated the state count incarcerated peoples’ residence based on their home address rather than the prison where they are held.

“While we believe that home rule law meant that we were not obligated to include these inmates in the count, out of respect for the taxpayers, both parties have agreed to go back and include them,” McMahon told NewsChannel 9.

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Ronnie White Jr., who represented the challenging Democrats in the state courts, said the county legislature settled the case on the grounds that the districts’ populations deviated too significantly from each other. The judge did not adjudicate based on Democrats’ other claims, White said.

“We and our expert did opine that the maps passed by the Republican members of the legislature gave them an unnatural and unfair advantage,” White said.

Democrats believe the 2021 maps served only to “enlarge the Republican partisan advantage,” White said. Right now, the Onondaga County Legislature consists of 11 Republicans and six Democrats. During the 2020 United States general elections, 59% of votes in the county were for President Joe Biden.

Burtis told WRVO that legislators will need to adjust county districts to accommodate incarcerated people. The legislature will begin the process soon, he said, but it does not plan to commit to a complete redrawing of legislative lines.

“We have to look at the incarcerated people, approximately 1,400-1,600 people, and we have to address that,” Burtis said to WRVO. “Not really interested in opening a whole can of worms up again.”

Max Ruckdeschel, chair of the Onondaga County Democratic Committee, said the party saw the district map adjustments as its responsibility. Democrats have been campaigning for these adjustments for the past 13 years, Ryan said.

The Democrats in attendance adopted a celebratory attitude toward Friday’s ruling, though Ryan said he would take further legal action against the county legislature if it doesn’t commit to adjustments.

“We are going to be here as long as it takes to fight for the citizens of Onondaga County to make sure they have the right to choose their elected officials, rather than the elected officials getting to choose their voters,” Ruckdeschel said.

Ryan said the city hopes to hold multiple public hearings before developing a new district map. The judge ordered the county to complete its redistricting efforts by 2025.

Published on September 24, 2024 at 11:11 pm

Contact Julia: jmboehni@syr.edu