So what brought you into that world?

Yeah, I think when I took constitutional law in law school, there were probably two or three pages dedicated to what now involves three or four or five case books and about 30 or 40 law schools teaching election law as part of the curriculum.

It didn't exist a while back.

But I've had a lifelong interest in politics.

My father was politically active and gave me a sense, a flavor of politics and the fun of it as a little kid growing up outside New York City.

But I really got hooked by the late Senator Robert F. Kennedy, who really brought me into understanding why politics just isn't a fun thing to do, but how it's a very serious matter.

from foreign policy to national policy to making this a better country, and that where politicians are often regarded as second class or corrupt or not to be trusted, Senator Kennedy believed that politics was and still could be an honorable profession.

That's what it feels like.

Is that enough then?

Well, what the plaintiffs are doing here, they're challenging the map based on the state constitution, but they're trying to incorporate the New York State Voting Rights Act, which was enacted by the legislature in 2022.

The State Voting Rights Act does not apply congressional districts, but it does lay out different kinds of criteria and standards that courts should look to when looking at vote dilution claims in counties, towns, cities, and villages.

So they're saying that there's similar preamble language in both the state constitution and the state voting rights act that it makes a lot of sense to also incorporate the state statute standards into the state constitutional situation, and that will probably be one of the first arguments that I think intervening Republicans will make to dismiss this case is that the State Voting Rights Act doesn't apply.

What the plaintiffs are doing here is using the State Voting Rights Act criteria that, unlike federal law, where you need to have a district of at least 50% plus minority voter population, that you can combine, let's say, 15% or 20% of combined voters, let's say black and Hispanic.

The Federal Voting Rights Act requires the 50% pretty much of one racial group, either black or Hispanic or Asian, but the state law permits you to aggregate or put together smaller communities of, let's say, black and Hispanic populations.

And that, in essence, is what they're looking to do by adding a part of Manhattan to the Staten Island-based district.

I mean, is there any other effort underway in New York State to redistrict?