New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) said Tuesday that he’s exploring possible legal avenues to protest his state’s loss of a congressional district after the U.S. Census Bureau tally found it fell just 89 people short of keeping its 27 districts.
“Do I think it was accurate to within 89? No, and we’re looking at legal options,” Cuomo said at a press conference Tuesday.
When asked to explain the tally’s narrow margin, Cuomo suggested that it could be the result of “a minor mistake in counting.”
Cuomo on Tuesday also lambasted the Trump administration’s oversight of the census, saying its unsuccessful effort to add a question on citizenship status could have dissuaded immigrants from participating in the count.
“You had people who were nervous to come forward. … You had undocumented people who were nervous to come forward,” he said. “I do believe the federal government had a chilling effect.”
Cuomo’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Hill regarding which legal avenues the governor was considering taking.
The governor’s comments come a day after it was announced that New York, the fourth-most populous state in the country, would lose a congressional seat. It is joining California, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia in losing one district each.
“What we have is that if New York had had 89 more people, they would have received one more seat instead of the last state that received their last seat,” Kristin Koslap, an apportionment expert at the Census Bureau, said Monday. “There are 435 seats, so the last seat went to Minnesota, and New York was next in line.”
Colorado, Florida, North Carolina, Oregon and Montana will pick up one seat apiece, and Texas, which gained more new residents than any other state, will get two new seats.