Judge approves NY housing map, solidifying turmoil for Democrats

A state court formally approved New York’s new congressional map late Friday, approving a list of House districts drawn by a neutral expert that could pave the way for party setbacks. Democrat this fall and force some of the party’s most prominent incumbents to go head-to-head in the primaries.

Copyapproved just before the midnight deadline by Justice Patrick F. McAllister of the State Supreme Court in Steuben County, effectively dealing with a Democrat tryst, creating a series of revolving seats new statewide and shuffle some carefully defined lines long ago. centers of power in New York City.

Jonathan R. Cervas, the court-appointed cartographer, made relatively minor changes to a draft proposal was released earlier this week with sweeping changes that in a short time have angered both Republicans and Democrats and turned Democrats against each other.

In Manhattan, the final map will still merge the seats of Representatives Carolyn Maloney and Jerrold Nadler, placing the two Democratic committee leaders, who have served together for 30 years, on a collision course of days. more unavoidable.

Another awkward Democratic primary came in Hudson in Westchester County, where two Black Democrats were drawn to a single county.

But the worst outcome for the Democrats appeared to have been averted early Saturday morning when one of the incumbents, Representative Mondaire Jones, said he would give up running for re-election in his seat in Westchester. He said he would instead runs in a newly reconfigured 10th Congressional District in Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn, a race took place Bill de Blasio’s candidacyformer New York City mayor, but no other House members are expected to participate.

Republicans have been eyeing pick-up opportunities in the suburbs of Long Island and in 18th and 19th Districts in the Hudson Valley that could help them regain control of the House.

And in the only Republican-held district in New York City, Representative Nicole Malliotakis breathed a sigh of relief that Mr. Cervas had reversed one of the boldest moves yet by Democratic leaders in the Agency. State Legislature, when they inserted the liberal Park Slope, Brooklyn, into her. County based on Staten Island.

Some of the most notable changes between the original and final county lines were in the historic Black communities of Brooklyn, where Mr. Cervas reunited Bedford-Stuyvesant and Crown Heights into single counties. He had to face uproar from black legislators and civil rights groups after his first proposal divided them into separate seats.

In response to feedback from community groups, Mr. Cervas also revised the map to merge Manhattan’s Chinatown with Sunset Park in Brooklyn, another eastern Asian-American community, in the 10th Congressional District. In each case, he said communities were “unintentionally divided” in his first proposal.

Justice McAllister’s order approving congressional maps and additional state Senate maps on Friday makes New York one of the last states in the nation to complete the biennial redistricting process. time.

However, both parties have braced for the possibility of civil rights or political groups filing new, lengthy lawsuits challenging the map in state or federal court.

Justice McAllister used the anomaly five-page order to refute the criticism that has grown at Mr Cervas and the court in recent days, because the maps were hastily drawn up out of public view. He acknowledged that the rushed time frame was “less than ideal” but defended the final maps as “almost completely neutral” with 15 safe Democratic seats, 3 safe Republican seats and 8 safe seats. spinning chair.

“Unfortunately, some have encouraged the public to believe that the courts can now create their own maps in favor of Republicans,” wrote Justice McAllister, a Republican. “That couldn’t be further from the truth. The court is politically unbiased”.

The final map is a utter disappointment for Democrats, who control every lever of power in New York and have entered this year’s biennial redistricting cycle with every expectation of winning. seats can help keep their House majority. They seem to have succeeded in February, when Legislature passed a congressional map that would make their candidates the favorites in 22 of the 26 counties, an improvement over the 19 Democrats currently hold.

But Republicans sued in state court, and Justice McAllister, the judge in the state’s Rural South, ruled that the maps violated the 2014 state constitutional amendment, which removed party rule. and reform the mapping process in New York. In late April, the New York Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court, uphold the decision and ordered a special master appointed by the court to redraw the contours.

Justice McAllister appointed Cervas, a postdoctoral fellow at Carnegie Mellon with little ties to New York and little experience in drawing state lines, and delayed congressional and state senate elections for until August 23.

On Friday, Mr. Cervas produced a Report 26 pages explains the rationality of his map, in which he tries to balance the need to protect communities of common interest, existing counties, and other constitutional requirements.

Mr. Cervas eliminated a county as a whole, taking it out of central New York to shrink the state’s congressional delegation to 26. New York can’t keep up with the pace with the country’s population growth in the 2020 census.

He’s made a bunch of other changes statewide, in response to a lot of feedback to the original proposal. For example, Mr. Cervas has significantly reoriented his map for Long Island, creating districts that divide the island north-south instead of east and west, but still keeping them highly competitive. .

In his final congressional map, however, Mr. Cervas turned down offers from Democrats and various interest groups to return to the traditional east-west split of the country. Manhattan. Doing so might allow Mr. Nadler and Ms. Maloney to run in their counties, avoiding messy primary conflict, but the master in particular wrote that he “did not find a theoretical interest in the public argument. to change the configuration”.

Mr. Nadler and Ms. Maloney have both announced their intention to run in the newly created 12th Congressional District, which includes central Manhattan.

“The new county does not belong to a single candidate, but rather to the voters who call it home,” Mr. Nadler said early Saturday morning.

Just south, a growing number of candidates are declaring interest in running for the newly reconfigured 10th District, which includes all of Lower Manhattan and a large swath of Brooklyn, including Park Slope and Borough Park.

Mr. de Blasio announced his candidacy on Friday before the lines are finalized. Hours later, Mr. Jones surprised Democrats by announcing that he would follow suit, despite having minimal ties to the school district.

“This is the birthplace of the LGBTQ+ rights movement,” said Mr. Jones, a gay man. “Long before the Stonewall Rebellion, peculiar people of color sought refuge within its borders.”

Representative Nydia Velazquez lives in the new county lines, but she has previously said she plans to run this year in nearby Seventh District.

Mr Jones’ decision will help avert another tense internal struggle in the Lower Hudson Valley.

Potential conflict surfaced earlier this week, when Representative Sean Patrick Maloney, the DCCC chairman tasked with defending a House majority, announced that he would seek to represent the existing territory in his seat. Jones. The decision will force Mr Jones into a preliminary competition with Mr Maloney or a progressive MP, Jamaal Bowman, in the neighboring 16th District.

With the maps in place, other candidates statewide are expected by the end of the week to announce campaigns and begin collecting petitions to get on the ballot.

Two up-and-coming Republican candidates appeared to have avoided a potential major clash on Saturday morning. Representative Claudia Tenney said she will run for the new District 24 that stretches from suburban Buffalo to the eastern shores of Lake Ontario, and Representative Chris Jacobs said he will run for District 23 including the Southern Tier.