Judge Throws Out Boundaries Of NYC's Only Congressional Republican District

Republicans are expected to appeal the decision.

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — A judge on Wednesday threw out the boundaries of the only congressional seat in New York City represented by a Republican, ordering the state to redraw the district on the grounds that its current composition unconstitutionally diluted the votes of Black and Hispanic residents.

Republicans are expected to appeal the decision, as a new front opens in a national gerrymandering battle that has both political parties jockeying for advantage in the fight over control of the U.S. House.

About a third of states have considered redrawing their House districts since President Donald Trump began pushing for Republicans to craft new congressional lines to help his party hold onto its narrow House majority in this year’s midterms. Democrats have countered by launching their own redistricting efforts, though they have sometimes been hampered by laws they passed intended to prevent partisan gerrymandering.

In New York, state Supreme Court Justice Jeffrey Pearlman handed Democrats an early win in the fight, ruling that a district held by Republican U.S. Rep. Nicole Malliotakis in southern Brooklyn and Staten Island should be reconfigured. The case, filed by an election law firm aligned with the Democratic Party, argued the current lines of the district were drawn without accounting for a rise in Staten Island’s Black and Latino residents, thereby diluting their voting power.

The judge said the petitioners had shown strong evidence of a “racially polarized voting bloc,” as well as “a history of discrimination that impacts current day political participation and representation,” and “that racial appeals are still made in political campaigns today.”