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Upstate New York Republican draws a challenge months after he narrowly won seat Biden carried [1]

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Date: 2023-04-13  

Williams, last time, overcame $1 million in primary spending from the Congressional Leadership Fund and defeated businessman Steve Wells, whom the powerful GOP super PAC evidently believed was a more electable option to replace retiring Republican Rep. John Katko. But the CLF and NRCC put aside any doubts about Williams in the general and spent a combined $5.8 million to help him in the general, compared to $4.3 million from its Democratic counterparts. Williams ultimately won 50-49 in a race where he had some big help at the top of the ticket: According to data calculated by Bloomberg’s Greg Giroux, Republican Lee Zeldin beat Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul 53-47 here as Williams was pulling off his tight win.

However, no one’s sure yet if the new congressman will be defending the same boundaries he won in 2022. Hochul and Attorney General Tish James recently filed a brief in support of a lawsuit asking that the court-drawn congressional and state Senate maps used in 2022 be replaced by maps drawn by the state's redistricting commission. A trial-level court rejected that request last year, but plaintiffs have appealed that ruling to an intermediate appellate court. The case could ultimately wind up before the Court of Appeals, New York's top court, which is about to undergo some major changes.

It was the Court of Appeals, ruling in a separate case last year, that ordered a lower court to draw those new maps in a sharply divided 4-3 decision. But the conservative majority behind that opinion is no more: Chief Judge Janet DiFiore unexpectedly announced her resignation in July, and after Hochul's previous nomination went down in flames, she's now nominated one of the dissenters, Judge Rowan Wilson, to take DiFiore's place. Meanwhile, to fill Wilson's slot as associate judge, Hochul has nominated Caitlin Halligan, a former state solicitor general.

While Wilson and Halligan have yet to be confirmed, there's been no sign of sharp opposition that greeted Hochul's first pick, Judge Hector LaSalle, whom many progressives feared would have been likely to side with DiFiore's faction. There's no assurance that a new-look Court of Appeals will agree with the plaintiffs in this latest redistricting challenge (and in any event, the intermediate Appellate Division must still rule first), but Hochul's new brief suggests she thinks it might.

Williams, who resides in GOP colleague Claudia Tenney’s 24th District, cited the uncertainty over what maps he’ll run under to justify why he’s held off on following through on his campaign pledge to move into the district he represents. The congressman, who lives about 2 miles outside of his constituency, tells syracuse.com, “There's no consensus about redistricting, so we're not going to make a commitment until we know what's going to happen.”

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/13/2163752/-Upstate-New-York-Republican-draws-a-challenge-months-after-he-narrowly-won-seat-Biden-carried

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