Redistricting and Election Law

Republicans have appealed Judge Jeffrey Pearlman’s ruling that struck down the Staten Island–Brooklyn NY‑11 congressional map for diluting minority voting power under the New York Voting Rights Act and ordered the Independent Redistricting Commission to redraw the district by Feb. 6. The appeal — filed in both a mid‑level appellate court and the state Court of Appeals — comes amid partisan accusations from New York GOP chair Ed Cox that Gov. Kathy Hochul and the attorney general declined to defend the 2024 map, and the dispute over this district, which has voted Republican in recent presidential and Senate contests, reflects a broader nationwide redistricting fight.

Maryland Democrats are moving a new congressional map through the state House of Delegates that would give their party an edge in every district and likely erase the state’s lone Republican-held U.S. House seat, represented by Freedom Caucus chair Rep. Andy Harris. A House committee in Annapolis is scheduled to vote Tuesday on the plan, drawn by Gov. Wes Moore’s Redistricting Advisory Commission, which Harris derided as 'partisan gerrymandering' and vowed to challenge in court. Even Democratic Senate President Bill Ferguson has criticized the draft, calling it 'objectively unconstitutional,' in part because it stretches Harris’s Eastern Shore district across the five‑mile Chesapeake Bay Bridge into pieces of two other counties. Moore is expected to testify before the panel, and he recently met with House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries in Washington to discuss the map, underscoring that national party leaders see the seat as a target in the broader 2026 battle for House control. The Maryland fight comes amid a nationwide redistricting arms race, following GOP‑driven maps in Texas and North Carolina and Democratic efforts in California and Virginia, as both parties press every legal and procedural edge to squeeze out more favorable districts before the midterms.

The U.S. Department of Justice has filed a Supreme Court brief siding with California Republicans and asking the court to block Proposition 50’s mid‑decade congressional map, arguing at least one district (CA‑13) was drawn on the basis of race to boost Latino voting power and that the map is therefore an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. The move follows a 2–1 federal panel ruling that upheld the voter‑approved Prop 50 map as a partisan (not racial) gerrymander—authorizing its use while litigation continues—and sets up an appeal to the Supreme Court as candidates prepare to file for 2026 races.