New York judge approves new congressional maps

A state judge late Friday finalized the state’s new congressional maps early, prompting lawmakers and congressional candidates to quickly figure out their districts or what districts to run in.

State Judge Patrick McAllister released the new maps just before the midnight Saturday deadline. It followed a busy week in New York politics after Jonathan Cervis, who is a special master appointed by the court, released a draft map that was deemed to be less favorable to Democrats than the one drawn by the Democratic-controlled legislature.

The state Supreme Court had appointed Cervis after throwing out those maps earlier this year. Cervis made a few changes in the final maps released late Friday, with the new map having 15 safe Democratic districts, three safe Republican districts and eight competitive districts.

New York’s current congressional delegation has 19 Democrats and eight Republicans, and the state is losing a seat due to the population loss in the 2020 census.

“What this map does is create eight competitive districts in which either party has a reasonable chance to win and three districts in which Republicans are likely to win,” McAllister wrote.

The new map still leaves in place the new 12th District in Manhattan, which will result in longtime Reps. Jerry Nadler and Carolyn Maloney running against each other. Nadler, a powerful Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, tweeted early Saturday that he would run in this new district.

Following the late-night finalization of the maps, Rep. Mondaire Jones, one the first openly gay Black members of Congress and who currently represents New York’s 17th congressional district, announced early Saturday that he will run for the newly redrawn 10th District, citing its inclusion of Greenwich Village, “the birthplace of the LGBTQ+ movement.”

That means Jones will no longer have to challenge either Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chairman Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney in NY-17 or fellow progressive Rep. Jamaal Bowman in the neighboring NY-16.