ALBANY, N.Y. — A judge in Albany ordered new congressional district lines for New York, tossing out the boundaries of the state’s only Republican-held congressional district in New York City, a move that could open a path for Democrats in the broader national redistricting fight.
The decision, issued Wednesday by Judge Jeffrey Pearlman, directed New York’s Independent Redistricting Commission to complete a new congressional map by Feb. 6, giving the commission a tight schedule of 16 days for a politically sensitive task that could alter boundaries for multiple districts. Candidate petitioning is expected to begin at the end of February, according to the court’s timetable.
Blair Horner of the New York Public Interest Research Group said the situation is “In one word: chaos,” describing the compressed timeline and uncertainty around whether the map will hold. Republicans, meanwhile, have promised to appeal the ruling, which could lead higher courts to pause Pearlman’s order while the case is considered.
The lawsuit that led to the judge’s order was filed by an election law firm aligned with the Democratic Party and challenged the current district lines that represent Rep. Nicole Malliotakis. The lawsuit’s proposal described reshaping Malliotakis’ Staten Island-centered district to reach across the water to include sections of Manhattan, with the aim of changing the district’s partisan tilt.
In court filings, the judge concluded that the existing district lines unconstitutionally dilute the votes of Black and Hispanic residents. Pearlman wrote that the district lines are “a contributing factor in the lack of representation for minority voters,” and he said the tight deadline was imposed at the request of state election officials.
As part of the ruling, Pearlman declined to adopt the lawsuit’s own proposed map. The judge rejected the plan to reconfigure the district, saying the state constitution left that decision to the Independent Redistricting Commission.
A co-executive director of the redistricting commission issued a statement saying meeting the deadline would be a challenge but that the commission is “we are ready to do so.” Republicans said they would appeal, and the case could ultimately reach New York’s Court of Appeals, a tribunal that in 2022 rejected congressional maps widely viewed as favoring Democrats and later dismissed redrawn maps after an additional round of work.
Some legal scholars said the commission’s task may still be possible, but not necessarily within the court’s time frame. Jeffrey Wice, a professor at New York Law School, said, “It’s doable,” but added, “The question is whether it’s possible in the time frame given.”
Democrats see leverage in how the redraw could be structured. The article said Democrats’ approach could include taking a chunk of southern Brooklyn that Malliotakis currently represents and placing it into an adjoining district stretching down Brooklyn and into Manhattan’s Chinatown, a geographic linkage framed as more favorable for Democrats.
U.S. Rep. Dan Goldman, whose lower Manhattan and Brooklyn district would be affected by the kinds of changes described, said in a statement that his “top priority must be to retake the majority and make Hakeem Jeffries Speaker of the House, and I will always place that goal first.”
Malliotakis has disputed the premise that Democrats’ objectives are permissible, calling the effort an attempt by Democrats to “tilt the scale to give their party an advantage.” The district has largely been represented by Republicans since the 1980s, with an exception in the late 2010s when Democrat Max Rose held the seat for one term before being ousted by Malliotakis in 2020. In 2024, Malliotakis beat her Democratic opponent by 28 points.