Nearly a decade ago, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the Independent Redistricting Commission would “permanently reform the redistricting process in New York to once and for all end self-interested partisan gerrymandering.”

Oops.

To be fair, Cuomo isn’t the only one who got it wrong. Newspaper editorial boards across the state lauded the commission as an improvement over legislatively drawn maps. Good government groups saw the commission as a way to eliminate some of the politics from a redistricting process that has always been overtly political. We know now that everyone was wrong. Rather than end partisan gerrymandering, the first process led by the Independent Redistricting Commission led to gerrymandered maps that were thrown out in 2022 by the New York Court of Appeals.

Rather than live to fight again in 2030, New York Democrats effectively packed the court, eschewing Gov. Kathy Hochul’s first choice to lead the Court of Appeals earlier this year in favor of Judge Rowan Wilson, one of two judges to dissent from the 2022 Court of Appeals ruling that threw out the 2022 legislatively drawn Congressional district lines. Wilson argued both that the lower court had no right to appoint a special master and that lawmakers had not engaged in unconstitutional gerrymandering. So no one should be surprised with Tuesday’s decision. Most interested observers saw this coming months ago.

The Independent Redistricting Commission has until Feb. 24 to come up with new maps and legislation. We don’t hold out high hopes for a smooth process. We’re talking about redistricting in New York state, after all. If commission members opt for a repeat of 2022, history will repeat itself yet again.

Children of the 1990s and their parents surely remember Shari Lewis and her puppet, Lambchop. If you change the words just a bit, Lewis is eerily prescient.

“The redistricting never ends and it goes on and on my friends.

It starts in a board room and ends up in court

It’s a partisan game that for us is a pain

But they’ll play it forever just because …”