A New York judge ruled Thursday evening that maps for new legislative and congressional districts drawn by Democrats violated the state’s constitution because they were designed to give the party in power a political advantage.

Acting Steuben Supreme Court Justice Patrick McAllister gave the state Legislature until April 11 to redraw the districts. However, his ruling almost assuredly will not be the last in the case.

“We intend to appeal this decision,” said Gov. Kathy Hochul and Attorney General Letitia James in a joint statement. Hochul, a Democrat, was the lead respondent in the case filed by 14 New York residents.

The lawsuit was filed nearly two months ago after Hochul signed the bill into law that reset the districts based on the 2020 U.S. Census results. The state saw its congressional representation reduced by one seat to 26 after it did not grow as fast as other states. Federal officials said the state missed retaining the 27th seat by just 89 people.

With the map established by the Democratic-led state Legislature, the majority party was projected to win up to 22 of the 26 districts. Currently, Democrats hold 19 of the 27.

The new districts were seen by some experts as giving Democrats nationally a chance to retain a slight majority in Congress after the November general election.

Lawmakers took action after an independent, bipartisan committee failed to agree on maps for either state legislative body or congressional districts.

The Independent Redistricting Commission was a cornerstone of a constitutional amendment approved by New York in 2014. In his ruling, McAllister said the commission members “stopped working” too early. Rather, they should have continued working until their Feb. 28 deadline after Republican and Democratic members deadlocked on two separate proposals.

The judge likened what happened to a jury that could not come up with a verdict.

“What someone should have done was bring an action to bring an action to compel the members of the IRC to continue their work or for the political sides of the legislatures that appointed eight of the 10 members of the IRC to remove and replace any IRC member that did not embrace his/her constitutional role,” McAllister wrote.

The judge also found that a law passed last November “made it substantially less likely” the commission would approve a bipartisan plan if one party controlled both chambers of the Legislature and the executive branch. That law, which required the Legislature to create its own districts if the IRC failed, came about after voters rejected it as a constitutional amendment.

Not only will lawmakers need to redraw the districts, but McAllister also said that the new districts will need “a reasonable amount of bipartisan support.” While he did not define that, he said it need not be unanimous.

Time is now of the essence. If the ruling to redraw districts is upheld, new timelines for candidates to gather petition signatures will need to be set. The date for a primary election would also need to be established. According to McAllister’s review, that would likely take place in August.

With the ruling, New York becomes the latest state to see its legislative districts tossed aside in court.

On Friday morning, New York State Republican Party Chairman Nick Langworthy and Republican Senate Leader Rob Ortt, R-North Tonawanda, held a press conference calling the legislature to quickly fix what they called illegal gerrymandering.

It also comes when Hochul and legislative leaders are working on a budget agreement that seemingly will not be reached before Friday’s deadline. That led Langworthy to issue a scathing critique of her performance.

“This woman is in over her head,” the party chairman said. “Kathy Hochul is not (former Gov.) Andrew Cuomo. He could teach a master class on how to run state government, whether I agree with his politics or not, or his tactics. He knew where everything was. Kathy Hochul is in completely over her head in this process.”

This article was originally posted on New York redistricting maps ruled in violation of state constitution