New York Court Ruling Scrambles Staten Island House Map In Win For Democrats

ALBANY, New York – A Manhattan judge on Wednesday ruled Republican Rep. Nicole Malliotakis’ district is unconstitutional and should be redrawn, potentially giving Democrats a coveted pickup opportunity in the tightly contested House.

State Supreme Court Justice Jeffrey Pearlman ordered a new map to be drawn by Feb. 6, which would allow it be used in this year’s congressional elections. But an immediate appeal is expected, and two higher levels of New York’s court system will almost certainly wind up hearing the case.

The district joins Republican-friendly Staten Island with a moderate part of Brooklyn. Democrats argued in the lawsuit that the design disempowered the island’s minority voters, and said it would be better to join Malliotakis' seat with Lower Manhattan.

Malliotakis won her last election with 64 percent of the vote. If the district were drawn the way Democrats had proposed, the party would likely win 90 percent of the time, according to experts who testified in Pearlman’s courtroom two weeks ago.

“It’s what we expected,” said former Rep. John Faso, who is leading the New York GOP’s redistricting strategy. “The judge made it up as he went along.”

Republicans had called for Pearlman — a former staffer for prominent Democrats such as Gov. Kathy Hochul and state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart Cousins — to recuse himself, but he declined.

New York’s Court of Appeals, the top bench in the state, sided with Republicans in a 2022 case that threw out Democratic maps. But the makeup of the court has become friendlier to the left since then, and the judges sided with Democrats in a different redistricting case in 2024.

The ruling could upend the congressional battlefield in New York, which includes several swing districts that could determine control of the chamber. Democratic Rep. Dan Goldman is facing a primary challenge from former City Comptroller Brad Lander. Goldman has indicated he might run against Malliotakis if her district is redrawn.

“I am focused on running in this district where I have lived for 25 years and where I have built these relationships,” Goldman said earlier this month. “The Democrats have to take back the majority. And as I told Leader [Hakeem] Jeffries, if there’s an opportunity to flip a seat in New York that would have an impact on my district, I’m a team player, and I will do it, but that’s not where my focus is right now.”

Language added to the state constitution at the request of former Gov. Andrew Cuomo says maps can’t abridge minority voting rights. This is the first prominent case to test the extent of that provision.

Pearlman determined that its reach is broad. Democratic lawyers have “shown through testimony and by empirical data that the history of discrimination against minority voters in CD-11 still impacts these communities today,” he wrote.

“Both overt and subtle racial appeals are common in campaigns in CD-11,” he said. The “current district lines ... are a contributing factor in the lack of representation for minority voters.”

He tasked the state’s Independent Redistricting Commission with drawing a new map.

"We are pleased that the court correctly recognized that the current district lines have systematically diluted the votes of Black and Latino Staten Islanders, despite decades of demographic growth in those communities," said the Elias Law Group's Aria Branch, who argued the case. "This ruling reaffirms that New York's Constitution provides robust protections against racial vote dilution, and we are proud to have stood with our clients to vindicate those rights."

If Pearlman’s ruling sticks, it could complicate the process of running in this year’s congressional elections in New York. Candidates are due to start collecting petitions to appear on the ballot in late February. Any appeals that uphold the decision and drag on past that date will risk changing the rules for running for office or delaying the primaries scheduled for June.