The U.S. Supreme Court must today put a stop to a stupid, last-minute congressional redistricting order from a Manhattan judge that will scramble New York’s elections. It is all part of a Democratic effort to undo the state’s superbly fair district map by targeting New York City’s sole Republican member of Congress, Nicole Malliotakis.
The timing is critical because petitioning for candidates starts tomorrow and if the decree from Acting Manhattan state Supreme Court Justice Jeffrey Pearlman remains in place there will be no congressional districts, as they must be redrawn.
Not only will candidates for Congress, incumbents and challengers, not be able to collect signatures, no one will know where lines may be. It might be months. And statewide candidates will be hampered as they must collect petitions based on congressional districts, which will not exist.
Whether or not Malliotakis, who has represented Staten Island and parts of Brooklyn since 2021, wins another term should be up to the public, not the map makers.
The constituency lines for Malliotakis and the state’s 25 other House members were drawn in a nonpartisan fashion by Carnegie Mellon expert Jonathan Cervas, who was appointed by a court as a special master after the Democratic Legislature hijacked the process in 2022 from the state’s bipartisan Independent Redistricting Commission and concocted a map knocking GOP-leaning seats down to just a handful.
Cervas produced a balanced map that favored neither party nor any incumbents, as the state Constitution demands. In the 2022 elections, the Republicans did very well, winning 11 of the 26 seats. In 2024, using the same map, the Republicans had a bad outing, losing four seats to end up with seven. The lines didn’t change. What changed were the minds of the voters, as it is supposed to work.
2026 is predicted to be a good year for Democrats, so be it; let them compete for votes with solid candidates and effective campaigns, not reworking the maps.
After Texas, goaded by President Trump, wrongly enacted a mid-decade redistricting to maximize GOP chances, other states like California responded to maximize the maps for Dems.
New York, thanks to our state Constitution, forbids mid-decade redistricting, so a phony baloney lawsuit was ginned up to claim that the Staten Island/Brooklyn seat held by Malliotakis unfairly treats Black and Hispanic voters. It doesn’t. And Dems in the state Legislature actually ratified this Cervas-drawn map in 2024.
But that didn’t stop them from suing 18 months later in trying to get in on the mid-decade redistricting game.
Pearlman should have said no dice, but he was suckered and state courts have refused to freeze his order, so it lands with the justices in D.C.
The Supremes allowed the Texas and California mid-decade redistricting to continue as partisan pols in Austin and Sacramento practiced naked political gerrymandering, which unfortunately is permitted under previous high court decisions, but the argument behind this Staten Island case is racial, and racial gerrymandering is not allowed.
If the Democrats want to beat Malliotakis, put up a strong challenger and run a good campaign. Leave the current, fair map alone.
