County faces suit over voting maps

By Joshua Rosenau
GOSHEN — Civil rights attorney Michael Sussman Monday announced he filed suit in federal court against Orange County, claiming that the county's election district maps are unconstitutional.

The suit follows the recent failure of the Orange County legislature to adopt district maps to reflect the interests of Latino minority groups in Middletown and Newburgh.

Separate from that conflict, Sussman is seeking to invalidate the maps now currently in effect.

"This lawsuit simply says that the district lines adopted first in 2005 are now archaic," Sussman said during a press conference. "What I expect to happen is that a federal judge will take control of the redistricting process, given that the county has had ample time to properly do it, and will ensure that the principles of 'one person, one vote' and the Voting Rights act are respected through whatever plan is adopted.

Sussman asks the court to "appoint, at defendant's expense, a special master to draw new legislative districts."

He singled out Voting District 1, the district that currently covers the Village of Kiryas Joel.

According to county data contained within the suit, District 1 contained 22,945 people. That number is 29 percent more than the allowable district size of between 17,753 and 17,680, according to the suit.

Sussman is representing voter Ann Molina of District 14. That district is 22 percent larger than the number allowed, according to the suit.

"This is really very simple," Sussman said. "We need a legitimate legislative body and we don't have a legitimate legislative body if people are elected from districts which are wildly disparate mathematically from what they're supposed to be. It is unconstitutional and it's unfair to voters."

Sussman urged voters who may be frustrated by having a federal court intervene in local politics to tell their legislators that they should have done better.

"Look back, not to me, but to your legislators who could not two years after getting the Census data come forward with an appropriate set of maps," he said.

Redistricting has been a closed and partisan process in Orange County in recent years. This year, Republican legislators Michael Pillmeier and Katie Bonelli were the only lawmakers privy to the carving of county election districts ahead of the entire legislature.

In an evenly divided vote, the legislature voted 10-10 to reject amended maps Pillmeier and Bonelli proposed.

A hearing at the federal district court in White Plains will consider the suit on Friday. Sussman has applied for the case to be fast-tracked due to the upcoming 2013 election.