BROOKLYN, NY – Congressman Hakeem Jeffries (NY-08) issued the following statement regarding the revised Congressional District map released by Jonathan Cervas, the Special Master chosen by Judge Patrick McAllister to redraw the maps created by a supermajority vote in the State Legislature. 

“The map prepared by an unelected, out-of-town special master and rubber-stamped in the dead of night by a partisan Republican judge in Steuben County is a constitutional travesty. 

The Court of Appeals recklessly ripped away the redistricting process from the elected representatives of New York State and set in motion a flawed process predetermined to benefit a Republican Party that embraces violent insurrectionists and refuses to denounce white supremacist replacement theory. The fix was in from the beginning.

The restoration of the iconic neighborhood of Bedford Stuyvesant into one Congressional District is a small step. We will not let modest changes to a severely flawed draft map whitewash the violence done to communities of color throughout New York City. 

As a result of the Court of Appeals decision, a partisan Republican Judge in Steuben County has degraded the Black and Latino populations in five New York City-based congressional districts. Equally troublesome, the most Jewish district in the country has been unnecessarily and gratuitously obliterated, resulting in severe collateral damage to neighboring districts in Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx. That’s outrageous. 

We will not allow those responsible for an unconscionable redistricting process and unconstitutional result to escape accountability.”

The map released in the dead of night:

• Degrades the Black voting age population in NY-05 by nearly four percent (44.7 to 40.8);
• Significantly erodes the Hispanic voting age population in NY-07 by three percent (37.1 to 34.1) and guts the core of the current 7th by over half (only 48.5% remains);
• Degrades the Black voting age population in NY-08 by two percent (43.6 to 41.6);
• Degrades the Black voting age population in NY-09 by half a percent (42.9 to 42.5);
• Eliminates the most Jewish district in the country by severing the historic connection between the Upper West Side and Borough Park in NY-10, doing violence to the district’s core by 71.8%;
• Reduces the core of NY-12 by over 40%;
• Guts the South Bronx’s opportunity to vote in a singular district, NY-15, and reduces its Hispanic voting age population by over 10 percent (64.1 to 53.5);
• Eliminates nearly half of the core of NY-14 by 42.4% and
• Egregiously degrades the Black population of NY-16, reducing it by nearly 10 percent (30.2 to 21.0) and splits the predominantly Black Assembly District 83 in the Bronx into three different Congressional Districts.