The Supreme Court on Monday shut down an attempt to redraw Republican Rep. Nicole Malliotakis's congressional district in New York, preserving the lines of a seat that President Donald Trump carried by 24 percentage points in 2024.
According to the Daily Caller, the ruling prevents a state court-ordered gerrymander that would have carved up New York's 11th Congressional District, which covers all of Staten Island and parts of southern Brooklyn, to favor Democrats ahead of the midterms. Justice Samuel Alito wrote that the state order requiring the map to be redrawn "blatantly discriminates on the basis of race."
The court's three liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented.
The scheme worked like this: Justice Jeffrey Pearlman, a state judge nominated to the bench by Gov. Kathy Hochul, ordered New York's redistricting commission to redraw the 11th district after finding it diluted black and Latino voters. The new map would have given Democrats a significant advantage in a district they have been unable to win at the ballot box.
Malliotakis urged the Supreme Court to block the January state court ruling, arguing it amounted to a "racial gerrymander" that would throw "New York's elections into chaos." The high court agreed.
This is not the first time New York Democrats have tried to gerrymander their way to more seats. State courts halted Democrats' Hochul-backed redistricting efforts in 2022, finding that the map proposed by state legislators was gerrymandered "with impermissible partisan purpose." The playbook hasn't changed. Only the justification has. In 2022, it was naked partisanship. In 2026, they wrapped the same goal in the language of racial equity.
Malliotakis, in a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation, did not mince words:
"The plaintiffs in this case attempted to manipulate our state's courts to use race as a weapon to rig our elections. That was wrong and, as demonstrated by today's ruling, clearly unconstitutional."
She also pointed to the deeper problem: the politicization of New York's judiciary itself.
"Unfortunately, the politicization of New York's courts and its judges necessitated action from the nation's highest court. I thank the Justices who stopped the voters on Staten Island and in Southern Brooklyn from being stripped of their ability to elect a representative who reflects their values."
Justice Sotomayor objected, writing 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."
The complaint would be more persuasive if the state court ruling in question hadn't ordered a mid-cycle redrawing of district lines. If federal courts shouldn't "meddle" near elections, what exactly was a Hochul-appointed state judge doing ordering new maps ahead of a midterm? Sotomayor's principle only seems to activate when intervention favors Republicans. When a state judge orders lines redrawn to benefit Democrats months before voters go to the polls, that apparently doesn't count as meddling.
The ruling is a direct setback for House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who has vowed to "finish" the mid-decade gerrymander war he says Republicans started in Texas during the summer of 2025. The Malliotakis district was a key target.
Jeffries's broader strategy is not faring well. His efforts to redraw Maryland's single Republican seat remain gridlocked, with Maryland state Senate President Bill Ferguson refusing to move on what he calls a "catastrophic" mid-cycle redistricting effort. Jeffries's office did not immediately respond to the DCNF's request for comment.
The pattern is worth noting:
At a certain point, the strategy stops looking like principled redistricting reform and starts looking like what it is: an admission that Democrats cannot win these seats on the merits.
Malliotakis, 45, was first elected to the New York Assembly in 2012 and ran for Congress in 2020, unseating a Democratic incumbent. She faces no challengers in the June 23 GOP primary. Three Democrats, Michael DeCillis, Troy McGhie, and Umar Usman, will face off that day for the right to challenge her in November.
She closed her statement with a line that crystallized what the case was always about:
"Whether I serve another term in Congress is a decision for the voters, not Democrat party bosses and their high-priced lawyers."
Democrats tried to use race as a legal instrument to dismantle a district that a Latina Republican won fair and square. The Supreme Court told them no. The voters of Staten Island and southern Brooklyn will choose their own representative. That used to be the uncontroversial part of democracy.
