New York Democrats have launched their latest push to disenfranchise Republican voters

New York Democrats’ latest bid to suppress Republican voters launches this week as the Legislature gets the ball rolling on amending the state Constitution to allow it.

They claim they’re just countering GOP gerrymandering across the country, but that prompts the question: Why did they start trying to do this before the ink was even dry on the 2020 Census?

As we noted recently, New York Dems in fact triggered the gerrymander wars with their relentless efforts, starting in 2021, to undo the voter-passed prohibition on gerrymandering so they could draw district maps guaranteed to shut out the Republicans (who still draw over 40% of the statewide vote).

That year they offered (and lost) three ballot propositions to allow it; practically every year since, they’ve pulled one or another dirty trick to do it anyway — with some success, though they had to thoroughly politicize the state’s top court to get away with it.

The latest stunt centers on passing proposed amendments this year and next, and so allow a statewide vote later in 2027, to empower ruthless redistricting for the 2028 federal election.

Their changes to the Constitution would:

• Delete the prohibition on partisan gerrymandering.

• Create a new power for the Legislature redistrict at will, rather than only after the Census.

• Kill the requirement for two-thirds of both the Assembly and state Senate to approve an override of the independent redistricting commission.

Democrats figure the national news and anti-Trump fever will move the public to OK this naked power grab, and perhaps it will.

Then again, if the voters reject these changes, the Legislature will gerrymander anyway: Again, that’s exactly how our lawbreaking lawmakers responded to the public’s 2021 rejection of their schemes.

They’ll claim (as they always do) that it’s about “fairness” and “protecting democracy,” but in fact it’s all about abusing their power to lock in more power — democracy be damned.