In a 4-3 ruling Wednesday afternoon, New York's Court of Appeals turned House Democrats' 2022 from terrible to potentially horrific by affirming a lower court finding that Democrats' new congressional map violates the state's new anti-gerrymandering law. The map Republicans derided as a "Hochulmander" promised to creatively stretch Democrats' lead in the state from 19D-8R to 22D-4R, their most dramatic redistricting gain in the country.

The ruling came as a modest surprise because all seven judges on the state's top court are Democratic appointees and the April 7 filing deadline for the June 28 primary had already passed. But the court affirmed the map was "unconstitutionally drawn with political bias" to "significantly reduce the number of competitive districts" based on a "one-party process" and ordered the primary delayed, likely until August.

Even worse for Democrats, the court isn't giving the Democratic legislature any chance to draw a remedial plan. Instead, a lower court in Steuben County has appointed Carnegie Mellon postdoctoral fellow Jonathan Cervas at a rate of $90,000 to draw a preliminary "non-partisan" map by May 16, with

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