For now, New York City’s sole Republican-held congressional district will retain its current borders, a win for the GOP as midterm elections loom.
On Monday, the United States Supreme Court issued a 6-3 ruling — a vote that fell along party lines — pausing a Manhattan judge’s order that would have required a reconfiguration of NY-11’s congressional district lines, which may have cost U.S. Rep. Nicole Malliotakis her seat.
Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Jeffrey Pearlman found in January that the boundaries of New York’s 11th Congressional District unlawfully dilute the voting power of Black and Latino residents, who make up roughly 30% of Staten Island’s population. He ordered the district be redrawn by early February so the new district lines would be in effect for the midterm elections later this year.
Malliotakis and other election officials asked both SCOTUS and New York’s Appellate Division, First Department to pause Pearlman’s order. But on Feb. 19, the First Department, which is based in Manhattan, declined to do so.
Writing for the majority on the high court in its ruling late Monday, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito said Pearlman’s ruling — which included an order for New York’s Independent Redistricting Commission to redraw congressional district lines to tip the scales back toward Black and Latino votes — amounted to “unadorned racial discrimination.”
Meanwhile, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote for the dissent that SCOTUS has consistently held that “federal courts should not meddle with state election laws ahead of an election.”
“Today, the Court says: except for this one, except for this one, and except for this one,” Sotomayor wrote.
Malliotakis, in a statement, celebrated the ruling and called the legal challenge to existing district lines “meritless.”
“I thank the Justices who stopped the voters on Staten Island and in Southern Brooklyn from being stripped of their ability to elect a representative who reflects their values,” she said. “Whether I serve another term in Congress is a decision for the voters, not Democrat party bosses and their high-priced lawyers.”
A version of this story first appeared on Brooklyn Paper’s sister site amNewYork.
