Onondaga County Republicans will have to go back to the drawing board on county legislature district maps before the 2025 local elections, a state Supreme Court Justice ruled Tuesday. The judge’s decision marks the conclusion of a prolonged lawsuit filed by county Democrats, who argued the maps adopted by the legislature in 2021 were gerrymandered in favor of Republicans.Both parties agreed to settle the suit last week, but the claims of gerrymandering were not resolved. Judge Joseph Lamendola’s ruling instead focused on Republicans not following state statutes that regulate how much the population numbers can vary from district to district. Per that law, the population difference between the most and least populous district must be 5% or less of the average population of all districts. Officials in charge of the redistricting process did not account for the 1,600 incarcerated people living in Onondaga County, violating that state regulation, Lamendola said. Legislators on both sides of the aisle said they don’t think the settlement will generate a consensus between both parties, but that they hope the maps can be drawn in compliance with state regulations. Onondaga County Legislature chairman Tim Burtis said the new maps would reflect only minor revisions from the current iteration. The new maps would have to account for the 1,600 incarcerated individuals not factored into the calculations used to draw the 2023 maps. Those maps were created by the Legislative District Revision Commission, a panel of six legislators who reviewed 2020 Census data to devise the new districts. Under the settlement, the new maps would skip the LDRC process and instead go straight to the legislature for approval. Burtis said that the legislature is working with an abridged timeline, given that candidates’ petitions to be on the ballot are due April 4.“It needs to happen as soon as possible,” he said. “We were very close on this map.”Legislator Chris Ryan, the leading plaintiff in the suit and the Democratic minority leader, said his caucus is ready to move forward with the process, but that they would relitigate allegations of partisan bias if they feel the next set of maps is unfair.The lawyer representing the Democrats, Ronnie White, said he hopes the settlement will produce more transparency in the upcoming map-drawing process, but that there is no incentive for Republicans to play fair.“There’s nothing really stopping them at this point from attempting to derive a partisan advantage through drawing the lines,” White said.Burtis said the legislature could consider bringing an independent observer to help with the process.  “The two sides just continue to fight, as electeds always do about maps,” he said. “And it’s exhausting… I would like to have the maps tested.”The post Onondaga County legislators agree district maps need redoing. Few expect to agree on the product. appeared first on Central Current.