Syracuse, N.Y. – Democrats raised $15,000 in private donations to pay for a lawsuit they filed today challenging the legality of the Onondaga County Legislature’s new political maps.
Lawyers for six Democratic legislators and other plaintiffs filed the lawsuit late Thursday afternoon in state Supreme Court.
Their complaint asks for an independent expert to redraw district boundaries that were approved in December by the Republican-dominated legislature and the Republican county executive.
Proponents of the lawsuit say the new district maps were gerrymandered to reduce the clout of Democrats and, in certain districts, Black voters. Those claims are spelled out in affidavits from eight local politicians and a county resident.
A political science expert from the University of Georgia, Assistant Professor David Cottrell, also provided an affidavit saying the county’s new legislative districts do not meet a state requirement to be as compact “as practicable.”.
On top of those issues, the maps were developed in a way that violated provisions of the county charter intended to minimize the role of the legislature and county executive, said lawyer Joseph Cote, who represents the plaintiffs.
Nothing in the charter, for example, gives County Executive Ryan McMahon authority to veto proposed maps, as he did in November before revised maps were approved.
The maps, according to Cote, are “a nullity.”
McMahon declined through a spokesman to comment Thursday afternoon, saying his office had not yet been served with the lawsuit.
Most of the $15,000 to pay for the lawsuit came from private donations, along with a few contributions from unions and local political committees, said Dustin Czarny, the county’s Democratic elections commissioner and one of the plaintiffs.
The Onondaga County Democratic Committee is continuing to raise money, expecting the total cost of litigation could rise to $40,000 or so, he said.
Czarny is in the unusual position of suing the county Board of Elections, where he is one of two commissioners.
“I’m taking the rare step of joining this lawsuit because I believe in fair districting and I believe that the voters of Onondaga County were not served by the process,’’ Czarny said.
Besides the elections board, the lawsuit names the county executive and the county legislature as defendants.
The lawsuit is similar to a case filed earlier this year in Steuben County that resulted in changes to Congressional and state Senate districts throughout New York. In that case, the judge appointed an independent expert called a “special master” to redraw the lines more fairly.
The Onondaga County lawsuit seeks a similar outcome.
The next county legislature elections are in 2023, which means final maps should be in place before the petition process begins next March.
In addition to the six Democratic county legislators, the plaintiffs include town board members, Syracuse city councilors and others who filed affidavits alleging harm caused by the new maps.
Max Ruckdeschel, a DeWitt town councilor, said he provided a statement describing how his town was divvied up between four county legislative districts.
Even though Democrats dominate DeWitt – the supervisor and the town councilors are all Democrats – two of the four county legislators representing the town are Republicans. And none of the four legislative districts includes a majority of DeWitt residents, he said.
“They cracked DeWitt,’’ Ruckdeschel said, referring to the process of splitting up voters of a particular type to dilute their power. The maps, he said, put some DeWitt residents into “areas with high Republican majorities, making sure that the minority is small enough that it would never be able to win.’’
One of the loudest critics of the new district maps has been county Legislator Charles Garland, who said Black and brown voters in his Syracuse district could lose the ability to elect representatives of their choice.
With 59% Black voters, Garland’s 16th District is currently the only majority Black district in the county. The new maps would cut some Black residential areas out of the district, eliminating the Black majority, and extend the 16th into a predominantly white University neighborhood and into high-rent areas downtown, he said.
“There’s no way that we would win,’’ he said of Black candidates.
Legislature Chairman James Rowley, R-Clay, said many of his Republican colleagues were angry about the litigation.
“My caucus has been all spun up,’’ Rowley said. He is advising calm.
“Let the judge do what he’s gonna do and we’ll deal with it,’' he said. “That’s my attitude.”
Rowley was one of two Republicans to vote against the new maps in December, saying at the time that he thought the legislature should take more time and solicit more public comment. But Rowley questioned why Democrats waited eight months to file their lawsuit.
The litigation comes two weeks after a contentious vote on the county’s $85 million aquarium and a month before what is expected to be a contentious budget process, Rowley said. He suggested that Democrats may have timed the filing to stir up more controversy.
“They sort of stick this in the middle, just to maybe keep it going, you know?’’ he said.
Legislator Chris Ryan, the Democratic majority leader, said Rowley’s suspicions were off-base. He said Democrats needed time to research the data and voting laws, to engage an expert, and to raise money for the lawsuit.
Ryan said the plaintiffs made sure they were on solid legal ground before going to court.
“I don’t take this lightly,’’ he said.
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