§ 5. The members of the assembly shall be chosen by single districts
and shall be apportioned pursuant to this section and sections four and
five-b of this article 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. 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. The court shall render its decision within
sixty days after a petition is filed. In any judicial proceeding
relating to redistricting of congressional or state legislative
districts, any law establishing congressional or state legislative
districts found to violate the provisions of this article shall be
invalid in whole or in part. In the event that a court finds such a
violation, the legislature shall have a full and reasonable opportunity
to correct the law's legal infirmities.