My hometown of Staten Island is often called the forgotten borough. Everyone knows about Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx. But Staten Island is known, if at all, as a conduit to get from New York to New Jersey. In terms of the famous New Yorker magazine cover, Staten Island lies beyond the Hudson River. Yet, Staten Island made it all the way to the Supreme Court's emergency docket, and prevailed.
Yesterday the Court granted a stay in Malliotakis v. Kosinski. The effect of this ruling is that the congressional maps that were previously in effect, and were not blocked by New York's supermajority democratic legislature, will go into effect. New York will not redraw the districts such that the Republican-leaning Staten Island is combined with Democratic-dominant parts of lower Manhattan. This suit was, from the outset, an audacious attempt by Mark Elias to simply create a new Democratic district under the guise of the state Voting Rights Act.
I have several observations about the case.
