Hakeem Jeffries Pushes New York to Join Redistricting Battle

New York Public News Network | By Jimmy Vielkind

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has dispatched a familiar face to enlist New York lawmakers into the national redistricting fight.

U.S. Rep. Joe Morelle met with Gov. Kathy Hochul and Democratic leaders of the State Legislature during a trip to the state Capitol on Tuesday.

Morelle, a Rochester Democrat who served in the state Assembly for almost 30 years, said he wants his former colleagues to authorize a mid-decade update to the state’s House map that could yield three new Democratic seats.

“This is an existential threat to this democracy,” Morelle told reporters. “We’re going to do everything we can.”

States normally draw new lines for seats in the U.S. House of Representatives once every 10 years, following the release of a new U.S. Census. But this year, multiple states controlled by both Republicans and Democrats are updating their maps in advance of the November midterms.

President Donald Trump started the political arms race last summer when he urged GOP lawmakers in Texas to change their lines in a way that favors Republicans. Democratic officials cried foul and responded in kind: Voters in California and Virginia approved new maps in recent months.

Analysts say Democrats were on track to gain a slight edge in districts that lean toward their party until the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last week that Louisiana’s congressional map in Louisiana was illegally racially gerrymandered.

Observers said the ruling effectively gutted provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act designed to protect the collective power of racial minorities’ voting blocs against “cracking,” a practice where neighborhoods are split up into other districts.

“After the VRA decision, all bets are off,” said David Wasserman, senior editor and election analyst at the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. “We’ve entered a new phase in which Democrats will be looking to exact any revenge they can, even if it means extracting even more advantage out of states they’ve already gerrymandered.”

New York is currently represented in the U.S. House by seven Republicans and 19 Democrats. Before Trump’s moves, state lawmakers in 2022 first proposed a map that might have yielded 22 or 23 Democrats. But state courts agreed with Republicans and ruled those districts violated an anti-gerrymandering provision in the New York State Constitution.

Hochul reiterated on Tuesday that she wants to see that provision struck down.

“I don’t feel like I should be handcuffed in a fight for our democracy,” Hochul said. “I think all’s fair in love and war. I’ve said it before, and I believe it: We did not start this. We did not start this. Donald Trump started this.”

Morelle, who voted for the current system when he was in the Assembly, said he would let state lawmakers determine exactly what tweaks were needed.

“I’m going to continue to fight for a national standard to make sure we have independent redistricting and fair districting all over the country,” he said. “But I don’t want New York, and I don’t want Democrats to disarm and lead to a permanent majority by the Republicans because they engage in partisan gerrymandering.”

State Senate Deputy Majority Leader Michael Gianaris, a Queens Democrat, is sponsoring a constitutional amendment that doesn’t change the current process but allows for a mid-decade update.

He said he believes another map can be drawn in response to other states’ redistricting without changing the existing rules governing districts.

“Given the criteria that currently exists in this state, we are able to construct a different map that would be responsive to what some of these other states are doing without violating our principles,” Gianaris said.

Lawmakers are still trying to finalize a state budget agreement. Asked about redistricting on Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins added: “We have not had a real discussion about what we might be willing to do.”

Good-government groups say major changes could lead to fewer competitive elections and disenfranchise voters. Citizens Union Executive Director Grace Rauh said the anti-gerrymandering provision and the independent commission currently tasked with drawing lines in New York are important.

“In responding to these very real threats to democracy, it is imperative that New York lawmakers not harm their own voters,” Rauh said. “And they would be harming their own voters if they move forward with a plan to abandon the safeguards that are currently in place, which have made redistricting much more fair in our state.”

New York Republicans, who are in the minority, are also objecting — and acknowledging that their party is at fault elsewhere.

“I think it’s bad policy,” state Sen. Tom O’Mara, a Southern Tier Republican, said Monday. “What’s going on right now, either from a Republican state or a Democrat state … it’s just leading to political warfare through redistricting.”

Image: U.S. Rep. Joe Morelle and Gov. Kathy Hochul speak to the media at the state Capitol on Tuesday. Morelle said he wants state legislators to authorize a mid-decade update to the state’s House map. (Jimmy Vielkind/New York Public News Network)