New York City had Republican mayors within living memory. And in 2024, President Trump had his biggest gains in New York. Especially in the borough of Staten Island where he won 2/3rds of the vote. So now Gov. Hochul’s former lawyer, currently serving as a ‘judge’, has declared the existence of Republican representation in Staten Island to be ‘unconstitutional‘.
A judge on Wednesday threw out the boundaries of the only congressional district in New York City represented by a Republican, ordering the state to redraw its borders because its current composition unconstitutionally dilutes the votes of Black and Hispanic residents.
In his ruling Wednesday, Justice Jeffrey Pearlman said the New York district represented by Republican U.S. Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, which includes all of the borough of Staten Island and a small piece of Brooklyn, should be reconfigured before this year’s midterm elections.
The lawsuit, filed by an election law firm aligned with the Democratic Party, argued that the lines of the district don’t account for a rise in Staten Island’s Black and Latino population. It pushed for the district to be redrawn to include parts of lower Manhattan, which leans more liberal.
The judge said the petitioners had shown strong evidence of a “racially polarized voting bloc,” as well as “a history of discrimination that impacts current day political participation and representation,” and “that racial appeals are still made in political campaigns today.”
Staten Island is too “racially polarized”. And that’s not a problem somehow with white liberal areas. But since Staten Island’s white voters are Republicans, it’s an urgent problem.
So Staten Island needs to be gerrymandered so it’s combined with parts of Lower Manhattan, which doesn’t have much of a black population, but does have a fairly leftist one, to create a fake district which Republicans can’t win.
Pearlman, who used to be Hochul’s counsel, doesn’t even pretend that this is about anything except partisan politics which is why he uses assorted dog whistles about Staten Island having the wrong kind of politics where “racial appeals are still made in political campaigns today.” Unlike Democrats who never shout, “They’re gonna put y’all back in chains” to black voters.
New York City has one Republican congresswoman and Democrats have decided to declare her existence ‘unconstitutional’. Having deprived most Republicans of representation, they’re now going to eliminate them entirely while pretending this is civil rights. What it is is taxation without representation. And tyranny.
