When Republican-controlled state legislatures set congressional districts in a manner that’s beneficial to the GOP, that’s gerrymandering and disenfranchisement. When Democrats do it, however — no matter how egregiously it may be done — it’s just plain redistricting.
And, if you’re the type that gets outraged at nakedly cynical redistricting, egregious is the only word that can be used for the map New York state Democrats have drawn up. While the state currently has 19 Democrat representatives and eight Republicans in the House of Representatives, the new map will have 20 Democrat-leaning seats, four Republican-leaning seats and only two competitive districts, according to an analysis by FiveThirtyEight.
Talk about an efficient way to try to make sure Nancy Pelosi remains speaker of the House — especially given that New York is one of the Democrats’ most populous strongholds.
While the Democrats are protesting maps drawn up by Republican legislatures, even taking states like Alabama to court, this is what passes muster with them. This is the kind of hypocrisy we highlight here at The Western Journal — the kind the media doesn’t like to cover. You can help us by joining the fight as a member of The Western Journal today.
On Wednesday, FiveThirtyEight reported the state legislature had passed a map “designed to give Democrats a huge advantage in the state,” which lost a seat in reapportionment after the 2020 census.
“The proposed map has an efficiency gap of D+9, but that understates how severely it would tilt the playing field toward Democrats,” FiveThirtyEight reported.
BREAKING: here is NY Dems' full congressional proposal, courtesy of @zach_solomon1. This is a 22D-4R gerrymander – and a pretty effective one. https://t.co/QleEKPMJy8 pic.twitter.com/yd7Iqx6DPh
— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) January 30, 2022
Not only did it create the 20-to-4 breakdown of safe seats for Democrats and Republicans, respectively, the two “competitive” seats are both advantageous to Democrats.
“This is an increase of three Democratic-leaning seats, a decrease of three Republican-leaning seats and a decrease of one highly competitive seat from the old map,” the outlet reported.
“If the map is enacted, it would likely set up Democrats to flip the open Republican-held 1st and 22nd districts, as well as Republican Rep. Nicole Malliotakis’s 11th District. GOP Rep. Claudia Tenney would also be thrown into a competitive race against Democratic Rep. Antonio Delgado in the new 19th District.”
The Daily Wire reported Tenney announced Monday she’d be running “to represent the newly drawn New York’s 23rd Congressional District in Congress.”
“We are officially announcing our campaign for #NY23 this year! I look forward to meeting and earning the support of even more New Yorkers and getting to work for our region in Congress,” she tweeted.
We are officially announcing our campaign for #NY23 this year! I look forward to meeting and earning the support of even more New Yorkers and getting to work for our region in Congress. pic.twitter.com/NlTfQKizFJ
— Claudia Tenney (@claudiatenney) January 31, 2022
New York is supposed to have a bipartisan redistricting process — and this confirmed how broken it was.
“Such an egregiously biased map was only possible because of the weakness of New York’s new bipartisan redistricting commission,” FiveThirtyEight reported. “Under state law, the legislature may simply draw its own map after rejecting the commission’s first two proposals.”
Yes, there’s the word “egregious” again — and coming from FiveThirtyEight, not exactly known as a hive of covert conservatism.
It’s not just New York’s Democrat-leaning gerrymandering that could help Pelosi, either. The Washington Post — again, not a bastion of Republican sympathies — reported earlier this week that “in more than two dozen maps passed around the country, Democrats would net an additional five districts that Joe Biden would have won in 2020.”
But again, it’s Republican “gerrymandering” that’s the problem.
Right.
New York state Republicans were looking at challenging the map in court. In a statement, state GOP Chairman Nick Langworthy said it was a “brazen and outrageous attempt at rigging the election to keep Nancy Pelosi as speaker,” according to the New York Post.
“Democrats are circumventing the will of the people,” Langworthy said. “For all of their phony protestations about transparency and fairness in elections, what they’re doing is textbook filthy, partisan gerrymandering that is clearly in violation of the New York State Constitution.”
“We are reviewing all of our legal options to protect the voices of millions of New Yorkers.”
If that doesn’t take, however, it could bring Nancy Pelosi a little bit closer to retaining the speakership after the midterms despite a wave of discontent at both President Joe Biden’s administration and congressional Democrats.