The state Appellate Division just got it half-right on the Legislature’s gerrymander, correctly blasting the US House-seat maps as drawn expressly “to discourage competition and favor Democrats” and thus violating New York’s Constitution. 

But the court so far has the state Senate maps intact, though those are equally skewed (they’re fruits of the same insanely partisan process) and directly benefit the Democratic legislators who dictated them.

Even so, the party that loves to mouth pieties about defending democracy has been dealt a stinging judicial slap over its blatant bid to disenfranchise New York voters and end-run the state Constitution. 

Yet that might not be enough. 

The case is headed next week to the Court of Appeals, where the political interests backing the gerrymander will challenge the ruling against the House maps, while the attorneys repping the voters who brought suit in the first place will argue — once again, correctly — that the Senate maps need to go as well. 

Andrew Cuomo-appointed Dems utterly dominate the Court of Appeals, so cross your fingers that its members decide as judges, not as politicians.

The ruling on the Senate maps is crucial to New York’s future: If that gerrymander lives, it would all but ensure near-permanent Democratic control in Albany, leaving the state forever held hostage to the high-taxing, free-spending, crime-loving policies now driving people elsewhere in droves. 

Look, this isn’t hard: If the House maps violate the Constitution, so do the Senate maps. That’s why even the pro-gerrymander lawyers were forced to argue technicalities (like claiming the voters who sued over the maps had no right to do so) and admit that “the process [creating the maps] was along partisan lines.” That’s why Judge Patrick McAllister was correct in tossing both sets of maps last month. 

Letting the Senate maps stand would be a crime against the people of New York. Letting both sets stand would compound it. 

If the Court of Appeals signs off on the gerrymander, it’s declaring itself nothing but a bunch of Democratic hacks camouflaged in black robes.