{"id":549391,"date":"2026-01-28T14:52:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T14:52:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/549391\/"},"modified":"2026-01-28T14:52:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T14:52:11","slug":"malliotakis-appeals-court-decision-to-toss-existing-ny-11-district-map-brooklyn-paper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/549391\/","title":{"rendered":"Malliotakis appeals court decision to toss existing NY-11 district map \u2022 Brooklyn Paper"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\"malliotakis\t\t\t<\/p>\n

U.S. Rep. Nicole Malliotakis is appealing a court decision that would force NY-11 to be redrawn. <\/p>\n

File photo by Todd Maisel\/File photo courtesy of Getty Images<\/p>\n

Republican congress member Nicole Malliotakis is appealing a judge\u2019s ruling that would force her district to be redrawn.\n<\/p>\n

Manhattan Supreme Court judge Jeffrey Pearlman last week<\/a> said the existing lines of NY-11 are unconstitutional and disempower Black and Latino voters within the district. He ordered the state\u2019s Independent Redistricting Commission to draw up a new map by Feb. 6, so it could be used for the upcoming midterm elections.<\/p>\n

Attorneys representing Malliotakis and five voters in her district are seeking to toss that ruling and keep the district as is, and on Monday filed appeals in both the appellate division of the Manhattan Supreme Court and the higher New York State Court of Appeals.<\/p>\n

They will also file an emergency motion to stay the decision, attorney Bennet J. Moskowitz said in a Jan. 26 letter to the judge, hoping to prevent maps from being redrawn while the appeal is being heard in court.<\/p>\n

John Faso, a lawyer representing Malliotakis and the constituents, said the court\u2019s decision was \u201cflawed from beginning to end.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\"nys-11The current configuration of NY-11, which includes all of Staten Island and parts of southern Brooklyn. Image courtesy of NYS GIS Data \"potentialAn illustrated map showing a potential reconfiguration of NY-11, included in court documents. Image via NY Supreme Court<\/p>\n

The original lawsuit<\/a> against the existing district lines, which was filed by four New York City voters last fall, claimed the 2024 congressional map ignored changing demographics on Staten Island and violated the state\u2019s Constitution and Voting Rights Act by \u201cunlawfully diluting the votes of Black and Latino voters in NY-11.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fundamental problem is the New York Voting Rights Act does not apply to congressional or legislative redistricting,\u201d Faso said.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

Judge Pearlman, in his decision, acknowledged the NY VRA does not apply to redistricting, but said the New York State Constitution \u201cprovides greater protections against racial vote dilution than the federal constitution or the federal Voting Rights Act.\u201d<\/p>\n

As such, Pearlman wrote, the court was responsible for examining the \u201ctotality of circumstances\u201d regarding the alleged constitutional violations. Based on the analysis of evidence and testimony presented in court, Pearlman said there was \u201cstrong support for the claim that Black and Latino votes are being diluted in the current NY-11,\u201d and that \u201cit is evident that without adding Black and Latino voters from elsewhere, those voters already affected by race discrimination will remain a diluted population indefinitely.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The decision was lauded by the New York NAACP, which said Black and Latino voters in NY-11 had \u201cbeen packed into a congressional district that dilutes their voting strength and denies them a meaningful opportunity to elect a representative of their choice.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Faso said Pearlman \u201cdecided the case on factors that were not even argued in court.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact is, the original case was a political gerrymander masquerading as a voting rights case, and the judge\u2019s decision is a political gerrymander based upon a racial gerrymandering argument,\u201d he said. \u201cI think, on appeal, this case is going to be tossed.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"nicoleMalliotakis is New York City\u2019s only Republican congress member. File photo courtesy of REUTERS\/Brendan McDermid\/File Photo<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not clear how the appeal will impact the drawing of new maps. The court ruled on Jan. 22 that the IRC would have to draw new maps for NY-11 by Feb. 6, as congressional candidates running in the upcoming midterm elections are supposed to start circulating petitions by Feb. 24.<\/p>\n

\u201cTime is of the essence this matter, as the Order has now thrown New York\u2019s 2026 Congressional Election \u2014 slated to begin on February 24, 2026 \u2014 into chaos,\u201d Moskowitz wrote in his letter to the judge.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

He said his clients would need \u201cclarity\u201d as to whether a stay would be granted and the 2026 midterms to move forward under existing maps by Feb. 10. If that timeline is missed, he said, they will seek \u201cemergency relief from the U.S. Supreme Court.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Malliotakis is New York City\u2019s only Republican congress member, and a redrawn NY-11 would likely benefit Democrats across the borough. If a new NY-11 included parts of lower Manhattan, rather than southern Brooklyn, it could be won by a Democrat, and U.S. Rep. Dan Goldman, who currently represents lower Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn in NY-10, has indicated that he would jump into the race in an effort to \u201cretake the majority and make Hakeem Jeffries Speaker of the House.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"U.S. Rep. Nicole Malliotakis is appealing a court decision that would force NY-11 to be redrawn. File photo…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":549392,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[241332,5229,7080,241333,241334,1121,241335,73199,63677,160774,37807,241336,379,10476,47284,405,403,50,2295,5226,5225,44970,5228,241337,5227,80,22204,7047,278,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-549391","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-2026-midterm-elections","9":"tag-america","10":"tag-appeal","11":"tag-appellate-division","12":"tag-bennet-j-moskowitz","13":"tag-brooklyn","14":"tag-congressional-district-11","15":"tag-congressional-districts","16":"tag-court-of-appeals","17":"tag-dan-goldman","18":"tag-democrat","19":"tag-john-faso","20":"tag-lawsuit","21":"tag-manhattan-supreme-court","22":"tag-naacp","23":"tag-new-york","24":"tag-new-york-city","25":"tag-news","26":"tag-newsletter","27":"tag-newyork","28":"tag-newyorkcity","29":"tag-nicole-malliotakis","30":"tag-ny","31":"tag-ny-11","32":"tag-nyc","33":"tag-politics","34":"tag-redistricting","35":"tag-republican","36":"tag-supreme-court","37":"tag-united-states","38":"tag-united-states-of-america","39":"tag-unitedstates","40":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","41":"tag-us","42":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549391","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=549391"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549391\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/549392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=549391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=549391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=549391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}