2006 New York Code - Apportionment of assembly members; creation of assembly districts.

 
    §  5.  The members of the assembly shall be chosen by single districts
  and shall be apportioned by the legislature 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. No town, except
  a town having more than a ratio of apportionment and one-half over,  and
  no  block in a city inclosed by streets or public ways, shall be divided
  in  the formation of assembly districts, nor shall any districts contain
  a greater excess in population over an adjoining district  in  the  same
  senate  district,  than  the  population  of  a  town  or  block therein
  adjoining such assembly district. Towns  or  blocks  which,  from  their
  location  may be included in either of two districts, shall be so placed
  as to make said districts most nearly equal in  number  of  inhabitants,
  excluding aliens. 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.