N.Y. Const. art. III, § 5: Apportionment of assembly members; creation of assembly districts

§ 5. The members of the assembly shall be chosen by single districts

and shall be apportioned pursuant to this section and sections four and

five-b of this article at each regular session at which the senate

districts are readjusted or altered, and by the same law, among the

several counties of the state, as nearly as may be according to the

number of their respective inhabitants, excluding aliens. Every county

heretofore established and separately organized, except the county of

Hamilton, shall always be entitled to one member of assembly, and no

county shall hereafter be erected unless its population shall entitle it

to a member. The county of Hamilton shall elect with the county of

Fulton, until the population of the county of Hamilton shall, according

to the ratio, entitle it to a member. But the legislature may abolish

the said county of Hamilton and annex the territory thereof to some

other county or counties.

The quotient obtained by dividing the whole number of inhabitants of

the state, excluding aliens, by the number of members of assembly, shall

be the ratio for apportionment, which shall be made as follows: One

member of assembly shall be apportioned to every county, including

Fulton and Hamilton as one county, containing less than the ratio and

one-half over. Two members shall be apportioned to every other county.

The remaining members of assembly shall be apportioned to the counties

having more than two ratios according to the number of inhabitants,

excluding aliens. Members apportioned on remainders shall be apportioned

to the counties having the highest remainders in the order thereof

respectively. No county shall have more members of assembly than a

county having a greater number of inhabitants, excluding aliens.

The assembly districts, including the present ones, as existing

immediately before the enactment of a law making an apportionment of

members of assembly among the counties, shall continue to be the

assembly districts of the state until the expiration of the terms of

members then in office, except for the purpose of an election of members

of assembly for full terms beginning at such expirations.

In any county entitled to more than one member, the board of

supervisors, and in any city embracing an entire county and having no

board of supervisors, the common council, or if there be none, the body

exercising the powers of a common council, shall assemble at such times

as the legislature making an apportionment shall prescribe, and divide

such counties into assembly districts as nearly equal in number of

inhabitants, excluding aliens, as may be, of convenient and contiguous

territory in as compact form as practicable, each of which shall be

wholly within a senate district formed under the same apportionment,

equal to the number of members of assembly to which such county shall be

entitled, and shall cause to be filed in the office of the secretary of

state and of the clerk of such county, a description of such districts,

specifying the number of each district and of the inhabitants thereof,

excluding aliens, according to the census or enumeration used as the

population basis for the formation of such districts; and such

apportionment and districts shall remain unaltered until after the next

reapportionment of members of assembly, except that the board of

supervisors of any county containing a town having more than a ratio of

apportionment and one-half over may alter the assembly districts in a

senate district containing such town at any time on or before March

first, nineteen hundred forty-six. In counties having more than one

senate district, the same number of assembly districts shall be put in

each senate district, unless the assembly districts cannot be evenly

divided among the senate districts of any county, in which case one more

assembly district shall be put in the senate district in such county

having the largest, or one less assembly district shall be put in the

senate district in such county having the smallest number of

inhabitants, excluding aliens, as the case may require. Nothing in this

section shall prevent the division, at any time, of counties and towns

and the erection of new towns by the legislature.

An apportionment by the legislature, or other body, shall be subject

to review by the supreme court, at the suit of any citizen, under such

reasonable regulations as the legislature may prescribe; and any court

before which a cause may be pending involving an apportionment, shall

give precedence thereto over all other causes and proceedings, and if

said court be not in session it shall convene promptly for the

disposition of the same. The court shall render its decision within

sixty days after a petition is filed. In any judicial proceeding

relating to redistricting of congressional or state legislative

districts, any law establishing congressional or state legislative

districts found to violate the provisions of this article shall be

invalid in whole or in part. In the event that a court finds such a

violation, the legislature shall have a full and reasonable opportunity

to correct the law's legal infirmities.