Republicans are ready to go all the way to the Supreme Court to fight against tearing up the city\u2019s only GOP congressional district \u2013 as Democrats could avoid a messy primary.<\/p>\n
A Democratic Party-aligned Manhattan judge ordered the state\u2019s redistricting panel to once again redo New York\u2019s congressional map Wednesday \u2013 a ruling that hurts House Rep. Nicole Malliotakis\u2019 reelection hopes and is expected to lead to more legal dueling.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will use every legal option at our disposal, including an appeal to the US Supreme Court,\u201d Malliotakis said in a statement as she blasted Democrats\u2019 effort to redraw her district.<\/p>\n
\u201cDespite having a voter registration advantage in New York\u2019s 11th Congressional District, Democrats can\u2019t beat me on merit, policy and debate,\u201d the GOP lawmaker added.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo what do they do? They file a meritless lawsuit claiming our district disenfranchises minorities to take out the first minority to represent the district and steal our seat.\u201d<\/p>\n
Judge Jeffrey Pearlman, a former staffer of Gov. Kathy Hochul, determined the boundaries on Malliotakis\u2019 district that covers Staten Island and Brooklyn were \u201cunconstitutional\u201d because it cut out minority voters.<\/p>\n
Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, New York City\u2019s lone GOP member of congress, is promising to continue fighting Wednesday\u2019s ruling in court. AP<\/p>\n
Now, Republicans are figuring out their next move as they look to appeal the ruling, which is expected to reach the state\u2019s highest court and maybe the US Supreme Court.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnything could happen,\u201d former Rep. John Faso, who helps coordinate redistricting matters for New York\u2019s GOP, told The Post Thursday.<\/p>\n
He argued Pearlman tossed on the map on a provision of the state constitution that has yet to be heard in the state legal system.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe decision is not grounded in precedent,\u201d Faso said. \u201cBasically, this is a brand new analysis.\u201d<\/p>\n
Democrats cheered the decision that could reshape the 11th district to include part of lower Manhattan and Staten Island. The new district lines could also prevent a primary between incumbent House Rep. Dan Goldman and his challenger, former city Comptroller Brad Lander in the 10th Congressional District.<\/p>\n
Goldman, who represents parts of lower Manhattan and Brooklyn,\u00a0has expressed an openness to running in the newly drawn 11th Congressional District if he\u2019s asked by Dem party leaders, which would lead the 10th district all for Lander.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur top priority must be to retake the majority and make Hakeem Jeffries Speaker of the House, and I will always place that goal first,\u201d Goldman said.<\/p>\n
Former Democratic redistricting lawyer Jeffrey Wice said Dems deployed a \u201cnovel\u201d argument by claiming minorities\u2019 voting rights in Staten Island are better protected by being aligned with more liberal white voters in lower Manhattan \u2014 rather than in more conservative-minded southern Brooklyn.<\/p>\n
Former Rep. John Faso is leading redistricting efforts for Republicans and criticized Pearlman\u2019s decision as highly \u201cabsurd.\u201d Douglas Healey<\/p>\n
\u201cThis has never been done before,\u201d said the director of New York Law School\u2019s Elections, Census, and Redistricting Institute.<\/p>\n
New York Court of Appeals has played a central role in the Empire State\u2019s redistricting fights since it lost two congressional seats after the 2020 census.<\/p>\n
The high court, under Chief Judge Janet DiFiore \u2014 who was appointed by former Gov. Andrew Cuomo \u2014 ruled in favor of tossing out maps gerrymandered by the Democratic supermajority in the state legislature in 2022. The ruling cited procedural issues that arose by lawmakers circumventing the newly-implemented Independent Redistricting Commission.<\/p>\n
A year later, a lawsuit filed by the same Democrat-sponsored law firm now working to force a redrawing of NY-11, asserted that the redistricting commission should be given another shot at drawing maps.<\/p>\n
In the meantime, DiFiore resigned and Hochul ultimately appointed to the bench liberal Chief Judge Rowan Wilson. Wilson wrote the opinion ruling that the IRC should get another shot at drawing the maps, leading the panel to come up with the lines in place today.<\/p>\n
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, of Brooklyn, says the court ruling is a \u201cfirst step toward ensuring communities of interest remain intact\u201d as Dems look to scrounge up any seats they can grab as they try to retake the House of Representatives. Nathan Posner\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n
Critics jeered that the move was another attempt by Democrats to gerrymander New York, but the commission ultimately presented maps that didn\u2019t vary much from those drawn up by a court-appointed special master.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was just a little over a year ago that the governor and the legislature, on a bipartisan basis, reenacted the congressional map. And not one a single change was made to New York-11,\u201d Faso charged.<\/p>\n
Neither his Republicans nor Democrats made any serious attempts to challenge the current maps until Texas and other red states ignited a firestorm by redrawing their lines in their favor last summer.<\/p>\n
The move prompted Hochul to call for New York\u2019s maps to be redrawn.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf that\u2019s what\u2019s called for, that\u2019s what\u2019s called for,\u201d Hochul said at the time.<\/p>\n
U.S. Rep Dan Goldman (D-NY) has entertained running in the newly-drawn 11th Congressional District if party bosses ask him. ZUMAPRESS.com<\/p>\n
The same 2014 constitutional amendments that created the redistricting commission, which is made up of five members appointed by Republicans and five members appointed by Democrats, are being invoked by Pearlman as his justification for the need to redraw NY-11.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Republicans are ready to go all the way to the Supreme Court to fight against tearing up the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":535757,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[20184,5229,327,54763,5371,5248,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,9294,67,586,132,5230,68,1154,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-535756","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-albany","9":"tag-america","10":"tag-congress","11":"tag-gerrymandering","12":"tag-kathy-hochul","13":"tag-metro","14":"tag-new-york","15":"tag-new-york-city","16":"tag-newyork","17":"tag-newyorkcity","18":"tag-ny","19":"tag-nyc","20":"tag-staten-island","21":"tag-united-states","22":"tag-united-states-of-america","23":"tag-unitedstates","24":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","25":"tag-us","26":"tag-us-news","27":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115941507411099867","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=535756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535756\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/535757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=535756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=535756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=535756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}