Democratic legislators in New York unveiled a new congressional map on Tuesday, but it's a far cry from the aggressive gerrymander that many were expecting—and many partisans were hoping for.
According to data from Dave's Redistricting App, the new plan does not make any significant changes on a partisan level compared with either the court-drawn map used in 2022 or with the proposal from the state's bipartisan redistricting commission that Democratic lawmakers rejected on Monday. Overall, Democrats would alter only 10 of the commission's districts, affecting just 2.3% of the state's population.
Only one Republican-held swing seat would become noticeably bluer, Rep. Brandon Williams' 22nd District, in the Syracuse area. But even there, Democrats would merely preserve the small changes that the commission proposed for the district rather than making more dramatic alterations to gain a further advantage. Consequently, the district would shift from a 53-45 margin for Joe Biden under the 2022 map to a 55-43 Biden edge under the Democrats' new plan.
Democratic chances of victory would not improve in a meaningful way in any of the six other Republican-held districts that lawmakers conceivably could have targeted: Nick LaLota's 1st, Andrew Garbarino's 2nd, Anthony D'Esposito's 4th, Nicole Malliotakis' 11th, Mike Lawler's 17th, and Marc Molinaro's 19th.
In fact, LaLota's district on eastern Long Island would go the other way, flipping from a 50-49 win for Biden to favoring Donald Trump 50-48. That would reduce the map's overall number of districts carried by Biden from 21 to 20 out of 26. And notably, every potentially competitive seat would still have gone for Republican Lee Zeldin in the 2022 race for governor.
So what exactly would Democrats get in return for rejecting the commission's proposal and drawing their own map? Two Democratic incumbents in swing seats would see their districts get bluer, if only by a modest amount, while another Democrat in a safely blue seat who's facing a competitive intraparty challenge could see his chances improve in the state's June 24 primary.
One of the two Democrats in competitive districts who would benefit is Rep.-elect Tom Suozzi, who just won a special election earlier this month to replace Republican George Santos. His 3rd District, based in Nassau County on Long Island, would shift from 54-45 Biden to 55-44 Biden—at the cost of making the neighboring 1st comparably redder. In the Hudson Valley, meanwhile, Rep. Pat Ryan's 18th District would go from 53-45 Biden to 54-45 Biden.
Additionally, Rep. Jamaal Bowman's 16th District in the Bronx and Westchester County would regain Co-op City, a heavily Black community in the Bronx that was removed from the district following the most recent round of redistricting. This neighborhood may be more likely to support the incumbent, who is Black and staunchly progressive. But because the 16th is already overwhelmingly Democratic, Bowman's real threat is from a more moderate primary challenger, Westchester County Executive George Latimer.
Democrats have the two-thirds supermajorities needed under the state constitution to pass this map and send it to Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul, but there's one wrinkle that would need to be dealt with first.
When legislators reject a map proposed by the commission and draw their own, a 2012 statute limits them to altering only 2% of any district's population, meaning they can move about 16,000 people between districts at most. But every district that lawmakers changed saw a shift in excess of that figure, ranging as high as 6%.
State election law expert Jeff Wice tells City & State New York's Rebecca Lewis that Democrats could repeal or amend the 2% rule—which the provision below might do—but warns there would likely be legal risks if they simply "ignore it." In a possible attempt to sidestep this problem, the bill Democrats unveiled that would enact their map contains a provision saying their legislation "shall supersede any inconsistent provisions of law," specifically in reference to the 2% limit.
If the new map becomes law and survives possible legal challenges from Republicans, it would have only a minimal impact on the overall playing field, which still heavily favors the GOP nationwide. Even accounting for New York, Republicans will still have drawn twice as many districts as Democrats nationwide. But even that top-line comparison doesn't tell the whole story, as almost every GOP-drawn map has been far more tilted toward Republicans than Democratic maps have been to their party.
Democrats in Congress have repeatedly sought to ban gerrymandering nationwide but have been blocked by Republicans at every turn. Facing that reality, many Democratic partisans had hoped New York lawmakers would eschew unilateral disarmament and help rebalance the national map by drawing lines to favor Democrats in the Empire State. But barring a change of course by the legislature or a veto by Hochul, these hopes will be dashed.
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