Queens sees major changes under new congressional draft maps released by special master
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The special master appointed to create New York’s congressional and State Senate districts released his congressional proposal Monday morning. Map via Dave’s Redistricting
By Jacob Kaye
The first peak at the congressional lines New York will use for the next decade were released Monday by the special master appointed by a judge to draw them.
The maps, drawn by postdoctoral fellow at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh Jonathan Cervas, have yet to be approved by a judge, but could serve as a look into the general shape New York’s district lines may take by the end of the week – the deadline for approval.
In Queens, several districts not only see major changes from the lines drawn by state Democrats and struck down by the Court of Appeals, but also from the lines used in New York for the past decade.
New York’s 3rd Congressional District, which baffled good government groups when it was originally redrawn by state lawmakers earlier this year, sees major changes under the proposal.
Under the maps deemed unconstitutional by the Court of Appeals, NY-3 was drawn to include sections of Queens, Nassau, Suffolk, the Bronx and Westchester Counties. It now more resembles the shape it's taken for the past decade, covering parts of Nassau and a portion of Eastern and Northern Queens.
The seat is open as its current representative, Tom Suozzi, runs for governor. Its current Democratic candidates include Robert Zimmerman, Francisco Spies, Reema Rasool, Joshua Lafazan, Navjot Kaur, Jon Kaiman, Melanie D'Arrigo and Alessandra Biaggi.
Biaggi, a state senator in the Bronx, would lose her Bronx base in the proposed district.
In a statement, Zimmerman reaffirmed his intention to run for the seat.
“Regardless of the map, the issues that brought me into this race remain of vital importance to our communities,” Zimmerman said. “If the map proposed today is adopted, I plan to run in [NY-3].”
Kaiman shared a similar sentiment.
“Given the new maps today, I am proud to continue running for Congress in New York’s 3rd Congressional District,” he said in a statement. “I am taking the fight to Washington, and will never stop working on behalf of residents in my district. We will keep NY03 blue in November.”
The district could pose a threat to Democrats, who throughout New York now face a number of Republican threats made neutral under the unconstitutional maps.
“Could a Republican be elected there? The answer is yes,” said Hank Sheinkopf, a political consultant and political science professor. “Crime will be the issue – it's a much more middle class [district]...So, the probability of a Republican picking up that seat is pretty good.”
George Santos, who ran against Suozzi in 2020, is currently the only Republican declared in the race.
Santos, a Queens native, expressed optimism about the new maps, which statewide give Republicans more opportunity for victory than the maps proposed by state Democrats earlier this year.
“Based on these maps, I am even more confident in a fair fight that will in victory this November,” Santos said in a statement. “Thankfully multiple courts in New York Showed integrity and honor by doing the right thing. They did their jobs and did it well. These judges were not swayed by public opinion. They stuck to the law and ruled wisely.”
Santos picked up around 43 percent of the vote to Suozzi’s 55 percent in 2020.
Another major change under the proposed maps comes in New York’s 12th Congressional District, which has been represented in its current form by Carolyn Maloney since 2013 and in previous forms since 1993. Under Cervas’ proposal, the district’s Queens portions are eliminated entirely.
The district, which currently covers a portion of Astoria and Long Island City, as well as a portion of Northern Brooklyn, is now wholly concentrated in Manhattan, extending onto the west side.
While Maloney likely rid herself of a challenger in Rana Abdelhamid, a progressive Astoria resident who no longer lives in NY-12 under the proposal, the district now pits two of the Democrats’ top members in a race against each other.
Both Maloney and Rep. Jerry Nadler, who lives on the West Side and who has counted many of its members as his base for decades, announced that they’d be running to represent the 12th Congressional District. During redistricting years, candidates are not required to live in the district they are running for. The only requirement is that they live in the state.
“I am proud to announce that I will be running to continue to represent the 12th Congressional District,” Maloney said in a statement. “A majority of the communities in the newly redrawn NY-12 are ones I have represented for years and to which I have deep ties.”
Nadler, who currently represents NY-10, said that while he doesn’t approve of the maps, he’ll run in the new district.
“I believe these newly proposed lines by the Special Master violate the NYS constitutional requirements of keeping communities of interest together and keeping the cores of existing districts largely intact,” he said in a statement. “However, provided that they become permanent, I very much look forward to running in and representing the people of the newly created 12th District of New York.”
What Queens portions the 12th Congressional District lost, the 14th Congressional District and the 7th Congressional District gained.
The 14 District is currently represented by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and under the proposals, the young leader of the progressive left in the House of Representatives would pick up sections of Queens that have, on multiple occasions, elected Democratic Socialists of America-backed candidates to office, including Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani and City Councilmember Tiffany Cabán.
Under the proposal, New York’s 12 Congressional District would pick up a section of Astoria that stretches from Astoria Boulevard to Broadway and from the East River to 42nd Street.
The 7th Congressional District, which is currently represented by Rep. Nydia Velazquez, would also pick up a chunk of the Queens territory lost by the 12th District.
The entirety of Long Island City and Sunnyside would be included in Velazquez’s district under the proposal.
Velazquez said in a statement that while she disagrees with the processes by which the proposed maps were drawn, she will run in the 7th District if the maps are adopted as is.
“Today's draft Congressional Maps overrules the process put in place by New Yorkers,” Velazquez said in a statement. “Should they be adopted, I'll be proud to run in the new NY-7 to continue to fight for the workers, immigrants, and families I've been proud to represent in Congress for my whole career.”
NY-6, currently represented by Rep. Grace Meng, and NY-5, represented by Rep. Gregory Meeks, remain largely unchanged.
Meek’s district lost its small piece of Long Island and picked up Howard Beach in Queens. Meng’s district lost Bayside and Glendale but picked up ground in Jackson Heights and Woodside.
New York’s 8th Congressional District, represented by Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, has included a sliver of Queens for the past decade. That sliver, which included Howard Beach and Ozone Park, is lost under the proposed maps. Jeffries’ district now only includes Brooklyn neighborhoods.
The congressional representative also lost a portion of his Brooklyn district, including Bedford Stuyvesant and Clinton Hill, a change he says disenfranchises Black voters in the district.
“The right-wing Court in Steuben County has released a map that is unacceptable, unconscionable and unconstitutional,” Jeffries said in a statement. “The Court of Appeals needlessly stripped away the ability of the elected representatives of the New York State legislature to cure any defect it claimed existed. Instead, a flawed process was put into place which has now led to a flawed result. Shame on everyone involved who have brought us to this point.”
Cervas touted the maps as more fair than those proposed by state lawmakers and signed into law by Governor Kathy Hochul. The special master said that his maps would yield eight competitive districts, compared to just three under the Democrats’ map.
Steuben County Supreme Court Judge Patrick McAllister is accepting court-submitted testimony on the map through Wednesday and will approve a final version of the map on Friday, May 20.
Cervas was given the responsibility of drawing the new congressional and State Senate maps, which were released late Monday afternoon, after a group of Republican voters and elected officials successfully sued state Democrats alleging that they had illegally drawn and gerrymandered the state’s electoral lines.
McAllister was the first judge to rule on the case, issuing a decision in the Republican’s favor.
The case made its way to the Court of Appeals, which ruled that state lawmakers had violated the state’s constitution both in the processes in which they drew the maps and by approving the resulting maps, which they said showed signs of partisan gerrymandering.
Lawmakers took over the map drawing duties earlier this year after the New York Independent Redistricting Commission failed to submit a final set of maps by its February deadline.
