A Manhattan judge ruled Thursday that the configuration of New York City’s sole Republican-held Congressional district is unconstitutional, and the map must be redrawn.
Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Jeffrey Pearlman ruled in favor of four residents of Staten Island’s 11th Congressional District, represented by U.S. Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, concluding that the boundaries unlawfully dilute the voting power of Black and Latino residents.
“Petitioners have shown strong evidence of [a] racially polarized voting bloc, they have demonstrated a history of discrimination … and they have shown that racial appeals are still made in political campaigns today,” Pearlman wrote in the decision.
The judge said the state’s Independent Redistricting Commission will need to draw a new district by Feb. 6. Malliotakis responded that she intends to appeal the decision.
“Today’s ruling is a victory for fair representation and for Staten Island’s growing communities of color,” wrote Chris Alexander, executive director of New York’s NAACP in a statement. “For too long, Black and Latino Staten Islanders have been packed into a congressional district that dilutes their voting strength and denies them a meaningful opportunity to elect a representative of their choice.”
In the lawsuit, filed by the Elias Law Group, a firm focused on redistricting fights that bolster the Democratic Party, the residents argued that a new map should combine the entirety of Staten Island with part of southern Manhattan, instead of the parts of southern Brooklyn it now includes. The new map would transfer the southern Brooklyn portion into New York’s 10th District, which Democrat Dan Goldman represents.
The district that the petitioners propose in court documents would extend up into Manhattan to include all of the financial district and parts of Greenwich Village, Chelsea and the Lower East Side.
Since the Lower Manhattan area that the suggested map would incorporate into the 11th District skews heavily Democratic, the shakeup could provide an opening for Democrats to flip the new district in the midterm elections. Max Rose, a moderate Democrat, had previously flipped the 11th District blue in the 2018 elections but lost to Malliotakis in 2020.
Democrats represent 19 of New York’s 26 districts.
Malliotakis called the lawsuit a “meritless” attempt to silence voters of her district.
“We will use every legal option at our disposal, including an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, to protect the voices of the people of Staten Island and Brooklyn and we are very confident that we will prevail at the end of the day,” she wrote on X.
The new ruling could also affect the race for the 10th Congressional District. In the 10th, Goldman is facing a left-wing primary challenge from former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, and the court ruling could place the sitting representative, who lives in Lower Manhattan, into the more moderate, newly proposed 11th District.
In response to the news, Goldman said that he’s “proud to represent my constituents in my current district” but that the “top priority must be to retake the majority and make Hakeem Jeffries Speaker of the House.” In a statement on redistricting he made in November, he said that if Staten Island were drawn into his district, he would “take the fight for democracy and a Democratic House majority to Nicole Malliotakis’ doorstep.”
This story first appeared on Brooklyn Paper’s sister site amNewYork.
