New York – Revised Congressional Map Upsets Democrats
May 23, 2022
Last month, a New York state court rejected the proposed congressional map drawn by the New York State Legislature. In the opinion, the Court rejected the initial map because it heavily favored Democrats and violated the 2014 amendment to the State Constitution, which prohibits gerrymandering in the redistricting process. With this decision, the Court did two things;
- Moved the Congressional primaries from June 28 to August 23; and
- Appointed a special court master to redraw the Congressional map.
Last Monday, the new draft Congressional map was released. The new map would create 15 Democratic-leaning seats and five Republican-leaning seats, leaving six seats up for grabs by either party. Democratic lawmakers in Washington did not support the new map because it could pit incumbents against each other and prevent Democrats from picking up more seats upstate. If the map is finalized, as is:
- Longtime lawmakers Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) and Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) would compete for the newly created 12th district. However, either could potentially run in the newly created 10th district. Both Maloney and Nadler have said they plan to run in the 12th.
- Former NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) announced he is forming an exploratory committee to run in the 10th district.
- Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chair Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-NY) announced he would run in the newly created 17th district. Maloney urged current 17th District Rep. Mondaire Jones to move to another district because he would be “ideologically better suited to another district”, which caused Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) to accuse Maloney of “thinly veiled racism” because the newly created 17th has three-quarters of Jones’s current district.
- Maloney’s decision could cause Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) and Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-NY) to compete against each other for the newly created 16th district.
In the fallout of the new map, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee implored the Court last week during the public comment period to reconsider the draft map and have the special court master change the map to prevent unnecessary competition between incumbents. The congressional map for New York is set to be finalized in the coming days. This is an ongoing story that CREFC will continue to monitor.