CNN
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New York Judge Patrick McAllister passed the new congressional map of the court-appointed special teacher for the state on Friday night.
The Map, which makes some changes to the special master’s previous draft, would still create 15 Democrat-favoring US House districts and about a half-dozen competitive seats. Under a blocked map that the legislature drew earlier this year, Democrats hoped to have an easier path to some 22 House seats from New York.
The Empire State will now have at least one incumbent vs. incumbent House primary, as longtime representatives Jerry Nadler and Carolyn Maloney will run for the new 12th Congressional District in Manhattan.
Some other member-versus-member primaries, however, appear to have been avoided, as Rep. Mondaire Jones, who currently represents an upstate New York City suburban seat, announced that he would run in the new 10th District, a seat that merges parts of lower Manhattan and Brooklyn, leaving Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney without an incumbent primary challenger in the new 17th District. The open 10th District has drawn a wave of interest from local politicians, including the former New York City mayor. Bill de Blasio, who announced a candidacy on Friday, and State Assemblywoman Yuh-Line Niou, who entered the race a day later.
McAllister defended the special master’s draft and final proposals, writing in the court order that “unfortunately, some people have encouraged the public to believe that the court can now create its own rigged maps favoring Republicans.”
He said that with the lines drawn by the state in 2012, eight Republicans were elected to Congress and the initial map drawn by Democrats for this round of redistricting “would only have favored the election of four Republicans.”
The judge said the new map would create “eight competitive districts” and “three districts that are likely to be won by Republicans.”
A key change to the draft map took place in Brooklyn, where the communities of Bedford-Stuyvesant and Crown Heights, which had been split in the previous version, were placed back into their respective districts. The change removes concerns among Democrats that Representatives Hakeem Jeffries and Yvette Clarke, both black, would be forced to run for the same seat.
“Restoring the iconic neighborhood of Bedford Stuyvesant into a Congressional District is one small step,” Jeffries said in a statement Saturday, before adding: “We will not allow modest changes to a seriously flawed draft map to whitewash violence against communities of color throughout New York City.”
The final special master map also included changes to Long Island. Republicans are likely to continue to have a stronghold in District 2, represented by Republican Rep. Andrew Garbarino.
Republican Rep. Nicole Malliotakis’ Staten Island seat, which Democrats had tried to redesign to favor them, will remain Republican-leaning and will not include more liberal parts of Brooklyn.
New York will have 26 congressional districts after losing one seat in redistricting after the 2020 census. The map drawn by Democrats was blocked by the state’s supreme court in April.
New Hampshire is currently the only state without an updated congressional map for 2022, however Florida’s map is changing in court.
This story has been updated with additional developments.
Reference-www.cnn.com