The Text

The members of the assembly shall be chosen by single districts and shall be apportioned by the legislature at the first regular session after the return of the state enumeration taken in the year one thousand nine hundred and fifteen among the several counties of the state. At the regular session of the legislature in each year in which senate districts shall be altered such members of the assembly shall again be apportioned by the legislature. Apportionments of members of assembly shall remain unaltered until the time herein appointed for another apportionment thereof. Every apportionment of members among the several counties of the state shall be 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.
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.
In any county entitled to more than one member, the board of supervisors or if there be none, the board or body exercising similar functions, and in any city embracing an entire county, or more than one county, and having no board of supervisors, the members elected from each county to the board of aldermen or if there be none, the body most nearly exercising the powers of a board of aldermen shall assemble on the second Tuesday of June, one thousand nine hundred and sixteen, and at such other times as the legislature thereafter making an apportionment, as hereinafter provided, shall prescribe, and divide each county 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 last preceding state enumeration, or if no state enumeration shall have been taken within a period of five years prior to such apportionment, then according to the preceding federal census; and such apportionment and districts shall remain unaltered until another federal census shall be made. 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, and no block in a city inclosed by streets or public ways, shall be divided in the formation of assembly districts, nor shall any district 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 assembly districts shall be so placed as to make such assembly districts most nearly equal in number of inhabitants, excluding aliens. But in the division of cities except cities of the first class under the first apportionment, regard shall be had to the number of inhabitants, excluding aliens, of the election districts according to the state enumeration of one thousand nine hundred and fifteen, so far as may be, instead of blocks. Nothing in this section shall prevent the division at any time of counties and towns and the erection of new counties and towns by the legislature. Assembly districts as at present constituted shall remain unaltered until altered as herein provided.
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 such court be not in session it shall convene promptly for the disposition of the same.