{"id":536152,"date":"2026-01-23T03:57:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T03:57:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/536152\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T03:57:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T03:57:14","slug":"how-new-yorks-gerrymander-fight-endangers-gop-house-seats-everywhere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/536152\/","title":{"rendered":"How New York’s gerrymander fight endangers GOP House seats everywhere"},"content":{"rendered":"

Redistricting battles in Texas and California grabbed national attention<\/a> for months \u2014 but all the while, an attempt to re-gerrymander New York\u2019s congressional map has been quietly underway in a Manhattan courtroom.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, acting State Supreme Court Justice Jeffrey Pearlman invalidated New York\u2019s 11th Congressional District<\/a> and ordered new lines drawn in the next two weeks, giving the case\u2019s Democratic plaintiffs exactly what they want.<\/p>\n

Contrary to the plaintiffs\u2019 arguments, this isn\u2019t about protecting minority voting rights<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s about finding any pretext to flip<\/a> the last Republican-held House seat in New York City.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s all being orchestrated by Marc Elias, the Democratic \u201csuperlawyer\u201d whose firm seeks to win in the courtroom what his party can\u2019t win at the ballot box.<\/p>\n

The district covers all of Staten Island and the Brooklyn neighborhoods directly across the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge: Fort Hamilton, Bath Beach, Bensonhurst, Dyker Heights and part of Bay Ridge. \u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the same basic map that\u2019s existed for five decades, yet Elias\u2019 lawsuit claims this district improperly dilutes black and Latino voting power.<\/p>\n

His argument is galling for many reasons, including that the current map was created by Elias\u2019 own Democratic allies in Albany in 2024.<\/p>\n

Democrats drew these lines, then Democrats sued to redraw them \u2014 because they didn\u2019t like the election results.<\/p>\n

In addition, Judge Pearlman\u2019s decision creates a new legal standard so broad as to leave virtually any House district open to challenge.<\/p>\n

He found evidence of \u201cracially polarized voting\u201d \u2014 that black and Latino voters in NY-11 tend to support the same candidates, while white voters usually support different ones \u2014 and noted that minority-preferred candidates won only five of the 20 most recent elections.<\/p>\n

But do the math: Black and Latino voters make up roughly 30% of the district, and their preferred candidates won 25% of elections.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s proportional.<\/p>\n

The judge, however, held that \u201cvote dilution claims do not turn on whether minority-preferred candidates win elections at a rate that matches\u201d their relative population in a district.<\/p>\n

Under this logic, any district where minority-preferred candidates lose more than they win could be unconstitutional.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s absurd, and an invitation for endless litigation.<\/p>\n

The decision also alleges a history of racial discrimination on Staten Island, including redlining and segregation. These are serious historical wrongs.<\/p>\n

But it never explains how the current district lines are responsible for these past conditions \u2014 or how redrawing the district would fix anything.<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s the elephant in the room: the district\u2019s current three-term member of Congress.<\/p>\n

That would be Republican Rep. Nicole Malliotakis<\/a>, a Latina whose mother is an immigrant from Cuba.<\/p>\n

The decision acknowledges Malliotakis was \u201cthe first elected official of Latin American descent elected in Staten Island\u201d \u2014 but dismisses this, explaining that electing an actual minority candidate is different from electing a minority-preferred candidate.<\/p>\n

A Latina congresswoman represents the district, yet the court finds the district lines dilute Latino voting power because she\u2019s the wrong kind of Latina \u2014 a Latina Republican.<\/p>\n

Make no mistake, this lawsuit was never about empowering minority voters.<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s purely about electing more Democrats.<\/p>\n

Judge Pearlman\u2019s remedy makes the partisan game obvious: The decision sends the case to the Independent Redistricting Commission with a Feb. 6 deadline \u2014 two weeks away, with candidate petitioning for November\u2019s midterms starting Feb. 24.<\/p>\n

\"Rep.Rep. Nicole Malliotakis is a Latina congresswoman who represents the New York district, yet the court finds its lines dilute Latino voting power because she\u2019s the wrong kind of Latina \u2014 a Republican. AP<\/p>\n

The IRC, with its equal number of Republican and Democratic members, has repeatedly deadlocked. It won\u2019t meet this impossible deadline.<\/p>\n

When it fails, the Democrat-dominated state Legislature will draw the lines itself.<\/p>\n

This is the third time New York will redraw its congressional map in three election cycles.<\/p>\n

The 2022 \u201cHochulmander\u201d was so partisan that courts struck it down<\/a>; a court-appointed expert drew maps for that year\u2019s congressional elections.<\/p>\n

Democrats convinced the Court of Appeals to let the Legislature redraw the maps in 2024<\/a>, and Republicans lost three seats that November.<\/p>\n

But three seats clearly wasn\u2019t enough.<\/p>\n

Now the Democrats want New York City\u2019s only GOP congressional seat, too.<\/p>\n

By an overwhelming margin, New York voters amended the state Constitution in 2014 to stop this manipulation of the redistricting process.<\/p>\n

They wanted to end the gerrymandering madness and the constant litigation by partisan lawyers seeking to game the system.<\/p>\n

As Wednesday\u2019s decision works its way through the appeals process, this fight is now bigger than just one House seat.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s about whether New York\u2019s constitutional safeguards against gerrymandering mean anything at all \u2014 or whether they can be exploited by partisans whenever election results don\u2019t go their way.<\/p>\n

Joseph T. Burns is a partner in the law firm Holtzman Vogel and a New York State-based election lawyer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Redistricting battles in Texas and California grabbed national attention for months \u2014 but all the while, an attempt…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":536153,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,327,9124,54763,336,405,403,5226,5225,44970,5228,5227,1269,9294,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-536152","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-congress","10":"tag-democratic-party","11":"tag-gerrymandering","12":"tag-lawsuits","13":"tag-new-york","14":"tag-new-york-city","15":"tag-newyork","16":"tag-newyorkcity","17":"tag-nicole-malliotakis","18":"tag-ny","19":"tag-nyc","20":"tag-opinion","21":"tag-staten-island","22":"tag-united-states","23":"tag-united-states-of-america","24":"tag-unitedstates","25":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","26":"tag-us","27":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115942407904277221","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536152","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=536152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536152\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/536153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=536152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=536152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=536152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}