Rep. Nicole Malliotakis of New York and Republican state officials asked the Supreme Court on Friday to stop a state court order to redraw her Staten Island district ahead of the midterms.
The emergency applications, one from several Republican state officials and another from Malliotakis and a group of voters, argued that the last-minute change would unleash chaos on New York’s electoral process.
Malliotakis and the voters argued the justices should step in because the state’s election process starts too soon — candidates can start circulating nominating petitions on Feb. 24 — to allow for a new map to be drawn.
“That is a recipe for unconstitutional chaos, with no map in place and uncertainty as to whether nominating petitions can start circulating on February 24, with no end in sight,” the application said.
A state judge last month found that the current map, which joins Staten Island with parts of Brooklyn for Malliotakis’ district, violated a provision of the state constitution by minimizing the power of Black and Latino voters on the island.
Malliotakis and Republicans went to the Supreme Court after they appealed the state decision to the state court of appeals, which denied a pause while the case plays out.
The Republican state officials argued the trial court order, which included drawing in Black or Latino voters from “elsewhere” in the state, was “on its face racial” in violation of the U.S. Constitution.
“This language alone establishes that race is the predominant — indeed, the determinative — factor in the redistricting remedy ordered by the court,” the application said. “The explicit goal is to reconfigure the district by relocating voters based on their race, which is precisely the kind of racial sorting the Equal Protection Clause strongly forbids.”
The Supreme Court has fielded appeals related to changing maps ahead of the midterms. Most recently, the justices allowed Texas and California to move forward with the midterm election with redrawn maps.
Mid-decade redistricting efforts hit a fever pitch last summer, when the Texas Legislature redrew the state’s congressional map at the behest of the Trump administration. California soon followed suit, along with Missouri and North Carolina.
Other states, including Virginia and Florida, are currently going through the redistricting process.
Experts have said that redistricting efforts could tip the balance of House control in the midterms, where the margin in the chamber is just a few seats.
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