New York Democrats Now Fighting Each Other over Redistricting

There are a number of angles to the current congressional-redistricting fight in New York, but let’s not lose sight of one of the most important aspects: It’s hilarious.

New York Democrats made this bed, trampling over a state-constitution-mandated process for redistricting, then getting greedy and drawing perhaps the most extreme partisan gerrymander in the country — a map so unbalanced that even New York’s highest court, composed exclusively of Democrats, threw it out in late April. The map would have drawn 22 relatively safe Democratic districts and only four Republican districts, an unbalanced result even for a state as Democratic as New York. The New York court of appeals sent the case back down to the upstate trial court to have a new map drawn by an outside expert acting as court-appointed special master. The court ordered that the June 28 primary be rescheduled for August.

The Democrats’ first response was denial. Democratic mouthpiece Marc Elias tried a desperation lawsuit, arguing that a federal-court order from twelve years ago prevented the state from changing the primary date. At least one potentially endangered House Democrat, Antonio Delgado, didn’t wait to see the results, resigning his seat to become Kathy Hochul’s lieutenant governor. Manhattan federal district judge Lewis Kaplan, a blunt, no-nonsense Bill Clinton appointee, told Elias to pound sand:

Let’s be frank. This is a Hail Mary pass, the object of which is to take a long shot to have the primary conducted on state lines that the court says is unconstitutional. . . . What are candidates supposed to do? What are voters supposed to do? What are all the people concerned with elections supposed to do? I would be hard pressed to imagine a scenario that would cast into greater disrepute the rationality, the fairness, the consistency of the holding of elections in this great country, than to precipitate that. It’s decidedly against the public interest. And I’m simply rejecting the applications.

Kaplan suggested that the federal judge overseeing the old order could just modify it, which he did, and Elias meekly withdrew the lawsuit. Yesterday, a new map was proposed by the special master; the court will decide on a final map by May 20:

Opinions vary on the effect of the map, although everyone agrees that it is fairer to Republicans than the prior gerrymander. Nate Cohn of the New York Times concluded that “the newly proposed New York map is pretty close to a best case outcome for Democrats, with just five Trump districts (v. four on the previously enacted map). Many competitive Biden-tilting CDs, but all voted more for Biden than nation as a whole.” While noting that the map could present vulnerabilities in a Republican wave year, Cohn observed that “the neutral year is where the map can shine for Dems, as it basically has the maximum number of Biden/Dem PVI seats–only one fewer than the outright Democratic gerrymander.” Dave Wasserman of Cook Political Report cautioned that “this NY map is pretty bad news for Democrats. With so many competitive seats, it’s not hard to envision a 16D-10R (or even 15D-11R) split on a great GOP night, which is a far cry from the 22D-4R rout Dems initially tried to gerrymander,” but added: “Were there worse outcomes for Dems in a special master map? Absolutely. Dems can take solace that this proposal doesn’t ‘strand’ many blue areas (i.e. putting Ithaca, Binghamton or Utica in deep red seats).” City and State NY reporter Jeff Colton concurred with Wasserman that the map could put more seats in play this year: The “draft map seems devastating for House Dems. Five districts lean Republican. And NY-2, 3, 18, 19 and 22 are all tossups. 4 and 17 could be won by a Republican in a wave year. That’s like *12 of 26* districts in play for the GOP.” New York hasn’t elected twelve Republicans to the House since 2000, when it had 31 seats in the House.

What has followed is a mad scramble for districts, with an emphasis on mad. The big news is Sean Patrick Maloney deciding to run against Mondaire Jones in the new 17th district. Jones was furious: “Sean Patrick Maloney did not even give me a heads up before he went on Twitter to make that announcement. And I think that tells you everything you need know about Sean Patrick Maloney.” What makes this so delicious is that Maloney is the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee — his first job is to work with every House Democrat to get them reelected, and now, he’s running to drive a black progressive Democrat out of his seat. Jones, who has previously referred to Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema as “white nationalists,” is unlikely to take that challenge sitting down. Veteran committee chairmen Jerrold Nadler and Carolyn Maloney may also end up running against each other. Hakeem Jeffries, also steamed at the threat to incumbent fiefdoms, claimed that the new map “would make Jim Crow blush.”

Just a few months ago, Democrats were relying on their New York map to give them a national edge in redistricting. Now, they are hoist by their own petard. Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch.