Revisiting New York’s 2022 congressional gerrymander

We’re in redistricting Groundhog Day as New York once again finds itself embroiled in a fight over gerrymandering. Democratic leaders now want to retaliate against the Texas plan to gerrymander mid-decade to help Republicans hold the House by engaging in some off-cycle redistricting themselves. Unlike Texas, though, that’s not allowed right now in New York, and the state constitution explicitly prohibits partisan gerrymandering. But that didn’t stop Democrats in 2022, when they adopted a congressional map that was later ruled unconstitutional for that very reason. Here’s a reminder of the greatest hits from that map as we all start to think about redistricting again.

1st District

Out of the wonky districts included in Democrats’ 2022 map, this Long Island seat is probably the least visibly egregious. But given the district’s history of remaining relatively ungerrymandered for decades, the exclusion of Suffolk County’s South Shore and a new extension into Nassau County that would’ve helped Democrats seemed more glaring. The traditional swing seat that had trended conservative in recent years would’ve seen some Republican strongholds replaced with more left-wing parts of eastern Nassau County.

3rd District

This district on Long Island received a lot of attention when Democrats first proposed their congressional map – and for good reason. A seat that used to encompass parts of Nassau and Suffolk counties, with just a sliver of Queens, had been redrawn to stretch across the Long Island Sound to Westchester County. With a tiny portion of the Bronx added in as well, the district would have included parts of five counties. It’s not often that one might need a ferry to get from point to point quickly in a congressional district.

10th and 11th Districts

Rep. Jerry Nadler’s district has always been a little … odd. But legislative Democrats’ 2022 plan took things to a whole new level. The 10th District lines ran along Manhattan’s West Side, before snaking a narrow and bendy path through Brooklyn in order to reach Borough Park and Bensonhurst to connect Jewish communities of interest. The old version of the district did that too, but the Democrats’ proposal, with its more roundabout lines, allowed liberal strongholds in Brooklyn to be added to Republican Rep. Nicole Malliotakis’ 11th District on Staten Island.

16th District

The entire Hudson Valley was a bit of a mess in the plan that state lawmakers originally approved, although the 16th District really took the cake. Between the old lines and those currently in place, the district only changed a little, adding more of Westchester and removing parts of the Bronx (which was a boon for now-Rep. George Latimer). But Democrats proposed a much different district, carving a path through Westchester all the way into part of Putnam County. The jigsaw puzzle of the region this helped create would have corralled Republicans into fewer seats.

24th District

Speaking of shoving conservative voters together, Democrats drew what amounted to a new district stretching from Buffalo to part of the North Country. It was based around the old 17th District, but encompassed parts of four other old districts as well to create its odd shape. Doing so grouped Republican voters previously spread around those other seats into a single district that already favored the GOP. But in the end, the version of the district in use now actually somewhat resembles what Democrats originally envisioned.’