Senate Majority Leader Skelos wins on appeal in suit challenging the constitutionality of New York's Senate redistricting plan

Client(s) Legislative Task Force on Demographic Research and Reapportionment

Jones Day successfully defended Senate Majority Leader Dean G. Skelos before the trial court and on appeal, in a suit challenging the constitutionality of New York's redistricting plan for the state Senate. The New York Constitution provides for increasing the size of the New York Senate to reflect population growth under the decennial federal census, and vests broad discretion in the Legislature to calculate the size of the Senate during each redistricting cycle. Here, the petitioners alleged that the Legislature's Senate size calculation under the 2010 census violated the New York Constitution because it employed different formulas for the Queens-Nassau and Richmond-Suffolk county pairings. In a unanimous per curium decision issued on an expedited appeal, the New York Court of Appeals upheld the Legislature's Senate size calculation as a constitutional exercise of discretion.

Cohen v. Cuomo, No. 135 (N.Y. May 3, 2012)