Supreme Court blocks redrawing of Republican-held congressional district in New York over liberal dissent

By John Fritze, CNN

(CNN) — The US Supreme Court on Monday approved an emergency appeal from a Republican congresswoman in New York who asked the justices to block a state court ruling that ordered her Staten Island-based district to be redrawn ahead of the midterm election.

The high court’s three liberal justices dissented from the decision.

Rep. Nicole Malliotakis and state GOP election officials had urged the Supreme Court to allow New York’s current map to be used, an outcome that will benefit Republicans in the midterm amid a flurry of mid-decade redistricting in other parts of the country.

Malliotakis argued that the state court decision requiring her district to be redrawn had “thrown New York’s elections into chaos” and said the new district would amount to a racial gerrymander.

The court’s short order did not explain its reasoning, but Justice Samuel Alito, a conservative, said that a state court order requiring the map to be redrawn “blatantly discriminates on the basis of race.”

Requiring the new map, he wrote, was “unadorned racial discrimination, an inherently ‘odious’ activity that violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause except in the ‘most extraordinary case.’”

The court’s three-justice liberal wing slammed the order, asserting that the Supreme Court was butting into a state law.

“Time and again, this court has said that federal courts should not interfere with state-court litigation,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor said in her dissent.

“Time and again, this court has said that federal courts should not meddle with state election laws ahead of an election,” she added. “Today, the court says: except for this one, except for this one, and except for this one.”

Sotomayor said the court was opening the door to far more last-minute redistricting litigation during the midterms.

By granting these applications, the court thrusts itself into the middle of every election-law dispute around the country, even as many states redraw their congressional maps ahead of the 2026 election,” she wrote.

The case deals with a different legal dispute than the one at issue in President Donald Trump’s effort to eke an advantage out of the maps by redrawing the congressional district lines in Texas and other states. However, Democrats would likely benefit from the redrawing of Malliotakis’ district in a midterm in which that party is angling to recapture control of the House.

A state trial court in January found that New York’s 11th Congressional District diluted the power of Black and Latino voters, violating a provision of the state’s constitution. Justice Jeffrey Pearlman, who was nominated to the bench by Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, ordered the state’s redistricting commission to redraw the district.

“Based on the facts presented by the expert witness reports and on the record, it is clear to the court that the current district lines of CD-11 are a contributing factor in the lack of representation for minority voters,” Pearlman wrote. “Moreover, it is evident that without adding Black and Latino voters from elsewhere, those voters already affected by race discrimination will remain a diluted population indefinitely.”

Republicans appealed the decision in state courts, but also came up to the US Supreme Court in February with an emergency appeal.

They argued that state voters were entitled to “conduct their congressional elections under the lawful map that the New York Legislature adopted starting on February 24, free from a judicial mandate that violates multiple provisions of the United States Constitution.”

Democrats urged the Supreme Court to stay out of the case and countered that the dispute dealt with state law.

“It is New York courts, not federal courts, that should decide how to balance competing interests in minimizing disruptions to state-law election-calendar dates and in ensuring that the state’s election district map is lawful,” Democrats told the Supreme Court in written briefing.

New York’s primary election will take place on June 23.

A state appeals court sided with the Democrats in the dispute, clearing the way for the commission to redraw the district.

Separately, the court is considering a high-profile case involving Louisiana’s congressional map. In that case, a federal court initially found that Louisiana’s map violated the Voting Rights Act. When the state redrew its districts to fix that problem, a group of White voters challenged the new version as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. A decision in that case could come at any time.

The Supreme Court has recently grappled with a series of emergency redistricting appeals. Earlier this month, it allowed California to use a new congressional map that will undermine Trump’s effort to keep control of the House of Representatives, marking a defeat for Republicans who claimed one of the new districts was redesigned based on race rather than politics.

But in December, the court allowed Texas to use a map that will boost Trump’s effort to keep Republicans in control of Congress.

This story has been updated with additional details.

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