As you probably know, the U.S. conducts a census every 10 years. The primary purpose of the census is to determine the size of the congressional delegation for each state. The state legislatures then go ahead and divide up the state based on the number of representatives that they have.
Based on the 2010 Census results, New York is going to lose two seats in Congress this year. As a result, New York’s 29 current congressional districts will have to be redrawn in 27 districts for the next congressional election in November 2012.
New York also happens to be home to what is, arguably, one of the most dysfunctional legislatures in the country. The point was famously driven home during the June 2009 when the state Senate couldn’t even decide who was in charge.
So, what would happen if the New York legislature has a similar meltdown before November 2012 (or whenever the redistricting deadline is) and fails to redistrict the state? Would all 27 seats become at-large? Would the feds step in? Would New York not be able to elect Representatives at all until the redistricting is done?
As a follow up, what if the representation stays the same? Sure, the state should redistrict to reflect population shifts over the past 10 years, but could they, after the fact, simply use the old districts?
Lastly, what if the state was adding representatives? For example, Texas is adding four seats in the next Congress. So, what if Texas fails to redistrict? Do they keep the old districts and the new seats become at-large?
Although this was a state election, I can report the following experience. Around 1967 or 68, the districting for the state of Illinois lower house was ruled unconstitutionally illegal. The sitting legislature could not draw new districts in time for the next election. So they had an election at large in which no party could put up more than 118 candidates (with 177 seats to fill). So I got this ballot with 118 Dems in one column and 118 Reps in the other. I guess no third party bothered to compete. Each candidate had a box next to his name and there was a straight party box at the top of each column. But you could X that box on one column, call it column A and also put a few Xs in column B. The effect of this was to change the vote on that line to party B so that the guy who got the X got your vote and the random candidate in column A who happened, by the luck of the draw, to be on the same line lost it. The result was predictable. One party (the Dems, IIRC) won 118 seats and the other 59. Which 59? Well the ones who got a few extra of those split ballots, or lost a few fewer of them. I am sure the party leaders really made the choice and a few workers split their ballots in the necessary way. At any rate, the new legislature swiftly redistricted.
Just yesterday there was a story that the bi-partisan committee on redistricting in Missouri has failed to come up with a plan. This was after the legislature wouldn’t agree with the governor’s plan, and the governor wouldn’t agree to the legislature’s plan.
Short answer. If no one agrees on a plan by some yet to be determined deadline, it will go to court.
The Minnesota Legislature is closely divided, with Republicans currently holding the majority. But the Governor is Democratic. So they could not agree on a redistricting plan.
So it got thrown to the state courts, and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court has appointed a special panel of Judges to decide on redistricting. As has happened in 3 of the last 4 Census years. (The other time, the Democratic Legislature passed a redistricting plan, which the Republican Governor vetoed, but he forgot to veto it within the required time, so it went into effect.)
Basically, if the Legislature & Governor can’t agree oin a plan, it goes to the Courts.
First, the constitutions or laws of many states contain backstop provisions if the two houses of the legislature and the governor fail to reach agreement. The backstop can take the form of referral to a nonpartisan commission, referral (as in Illinois) to a partisan commission with the deciding vote determined by lot, or referral to the state courts.
From a quick read of the New York constitution, it appears, however, that New York does not have such a backstop.
If a state doesn’t have a backstop, or if the backstop for some reason misfires, then the matter will go federal court. The statutory language cited above by Lord Feldon is now obsolete, because continuation of ten-year-old districts would violate more recent Supreme Court one-person one-vote rulings.
For an example of one such court-ordered redistricting, see the federal district court opinion in *Balderas v. State of Texas* (PDF), which arose after the Texas legislature failed to redraw US House boundaries in 2001.
The Federal Constitution (& Supreme Court decisions) require it every 10 years, but the individual states are supposed to do it, so it could be a matter for State Courts. Here in Minnesota, it is being done via the Minnesota Supreme Court this time, but there have been times in the past when it was done by a panel of Federal Judges.
Sometimes it’s a matter of who gets to court first to file a lawsuit. And which court they get to. That can be important, because of the biases of judges. If you have a State Supreme Court dominated by Republican-appointed judges, vs. a Federal District Court with most judges appointed by Democratic Presidents, the Democrats would want to file a lawsuit in Federal Court, while Republicans would file before the State Courts.
According to the federal law Lord Feldon cited, the procedure is already established. If the state is unable to agree on a redistricting plan it elects at-large members who will represent the entire state. So New York would presumably have a free-for-all election and the twenty-seven people who got the most votes would become Congressmen.
The problem with this is, AIUI, as Freddy noted, the Federal courts have held that “one man, one vote” makes multimember constituencies, including electing the entire House delegation at large, unconstitutional. If a state legislature fails to adopt a redistricting plan that approximates even distribution of population among constituencies [with due attention to avoiding the disenfranchising of minorities] in a timely manner, a court-ordered redistricting plan will be put in place. Or so I’m informed; if someone has appropriate cites to validate or correct this post, I’d welcome their being presented.