A lawsuit filed on Monday on behalf of four New Yorkers charges that the state’s congressional map unconstitutionally dilutes Black and Latino votes in a district that covers Staten Island and part of southern Brooklyn, according to a copy of the lawsuit obtained by The New York Times.
The case marked New York’s official entrance into the national gerrymandering arms race. Rewriting the state’s existing congressional districts represents one of Democrats’ best hopes of improving their chances in the 2026 midterm elections.
Filed in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, the lawsuit argues that the lines for the 11th Congressional District unfairly disenfranchise Black and Latino residents under the state’s newly passed Voting Rights Act. The district is represented by Representative Nicole Malliotakis, the only Republican member of Congress in New York City.
The combined Black and Latino population on Staten Island has grown from 11 percent to 30 percent over the past 40 years, the suit notes, arguing that the current boundaries “confine Staten Island’s growing Black and Latino communities in a district where they are routinely and systematically unable to influence elections.”
A representative for Ms. Malliotakis did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
This lawsuit was filed by Elias Law Group, a Washington, D.C.-based firm that has handled much of the party’s redistricting litigation.
Filing a lawsuit is a far less certain path to redistricting than having a partisan legislature simply draw new maps and pass them into law, which is what Texas did earlier this year. But New York placed its redistricting process in the hands of an independent commission years ago, in hopes of insulating it from partisan politics….