NYC NOW - February 27, 2024: Midday News

Episode Date: February 27, 2024

New Jersey Representative Andy Kim is seeking an injunction to stop New Jersey primary ballots from using the "county line" which groups candidates together if the local party endorses them. Plus, It's back to the drawing board when it comes to New York State’s congressional districts. A bi-partisan commission had drawn up a new set of districts but Democratic state lawmakers rejected them on Monday. Now, those same lawmakers introduced new districts overnight … and they might be in place by the end of the week. WNYC’s Michael Hill talks with Albany reporter Jon Campbell to explain the update.

Welcome to NYC Now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. It's Tuesday, February 27. Here's the midday news from Lance Lucky. New Jersey Representative Andy Kim is seeking an injunction to stop New Jersey primary ballots from using what's called the county line, which groups candidates together if the local party endorses them. WNYC's Nancy Solomon reports Kim filed the law. lawsuit yesterday. Kim is in a tight Democratic primary fight with First Lady Tammy Murphy for a U.S. Senate seat.

The governor's wife has received support from many of the party bosses, and Kim says they're blocking him from competing fairly. This is the worst that I've seen it in terms of the First Lady weaponizing the county line and weaponizing this process to advantage her. Kim is asking a federal judge to require every county clerk in New Jersey to place all Senate candidates. it's together the way every other state lays out its ballot. 51 degrees showers becoming very likely this evening and overnight. Stay close. There's more after the break. For WNYC, I'm Michael Hill. It's back to the literal drawing board when it comes to New York State's congressional districts.

A bipartisan commissioner had drawn up a new set of districts, but Democratic state lawmakers rejected them yesterday. Now those same lawmakers introduced, new districts overnight, and they could be in place by the end of this week. Joining us to explain it all is WNIC's Albany. The Albany reporter John Campbell. John, before we get to the new news, briefly remind us, how did we get here? Yeah, I mean, New York is split up into 26 congressional districts.

Each one of them has their own representative in Washington, and these districts, they're made up of towns, cities, villages, with similar characteristics or neighborhoods if we're talking about New York City. And for the last three years, we've seen Republicans and Democrats just fighting and fighting over how to redraw these districts to account for the latest census numbers. And we've already seen a couple rounds in court. First Republicans sued, then Democrats sued. And it all really led up to yesterday. That's when Democrats and Albany voted down this proposal from a bipartisan commission. and Republicans hated that move,

that it now allowed the state legislature to step in and redraw the map itself. And since Democrats control two-thirds of the legislature, that meant Democrats got to do all the drawing. Now, John, as we said, the Democrats introduced their new plan overnight. I want to emphasize overnight. What have we been able to glean from that so far? Yeah, we've been digging in as best we can, but it's a little difficult to draw conclusions right now,

and that's because the legislature so far hasn't published a map of what these districts would look like. We've only got this bill that has these lists of census tracks and block numbers, but here's what we've been able to determine so far. There are some significant changes to New York's third district. That's the George Santos district that Tom Swazzi just won in a special election earlier this month. And it looks like that's going to shift east a bit. It's going to stretch into Suffolk County, to pick up the part of the town of Huntington, and that would have the effect of making it a safer

seat for Tom Swazi and the Democrats. There's also a change in the 16th district in Westchester County and the Bronx. That's the one that's held by Jamal Bowman, a Democrat who's being primaried by George Latimer, the Westchester County Executive. That district would pick up Co-op City in the northeast part of the Bronx. That would have been a big boost for Bowman, who's a Bronx president, but he's also giving up some of the Wakefield neighborhood in the northern Bronx, so it's kind of a wash. The Democrats map, it would also keep in place some of the commissions changes in the Syracuse area, move some Democratic turf into a swing district that's held by a Republican, Brandon Williams.

So all in all, this map, to this point, looks more beneficial to Democrats, and that could have a huge effect on the November elections. And these lines on a map have very real. consequences as you just pointed out, John? Absolutely, Michael. I mean, it's not hyperbole to say that the way these districts are drawn, it could help decide which party controls Congress. As it stands, Republicans have a really thin majority in the House.

Democrats only have to pick up a handful of seats across the nation to take it back in November. And New York has a half dozen swing districts that really could go either way that includes districts on Long Island and in the Hudson Valley. So even a minor shift here or there could have a really major impact on that battle for Congress, which is why you see both parties battling really hard for these lines. John, for those of us who have been following this news, it feels like we've been talking about redistricting and court battles for the last couple of years.

What's the likelihood of this going back to court? Michael, it is incredibly likely. I mean, almost a certainty at this point. Republicans, they've been threatening to sue for weeks. if we got to this point. The GOP has said all along that if Democrats draw this map and it gets more beneficial to Democrats, then Republicans would be ready to take it to court. They've got funding lined up already from Ronald Lauder. He's a Republican donor and an heir to the S.A. Lauder fortune. The New York Times talked to him and he said he's ready to finance another lawsuit. And they're going to argue that this is all a violation of the anti-jerrymandering clause in the state constitution. that's supposed to prevent the boundaries from being drawn to benefit a particular party or candidate. That will almost certainly be the topic of a third round in court. That's what happened in 2022.

And the June primary was pushed back to August. So stay tuned. How do we get beyond this gerrymandering back and forth, John? Is there any framework for a less politically driven process either here in New York or any place else in the country? Well, this was supposed to be the less politically driven process, if you can believe it. The legislature always used to draw the state and congressional district maps themselves, but then in 2014, voters in New York approved a constitutional amendment that was supposed to change the whole process. They created this independent redistricting commission to draw the maps.

It's an even split between Democrats and Republicans, but really, that's the thing. Lawmakers still got to step in if they rejected two. different proposals from that commission, and that's exactly what happened here. So you're going to see good government organizations put pressure on New York lawmakers to make changes before the next round of redistricting, but that won't be until 2032, at least unless the court step in again. If you're just joining us, I've been talking to WNIC's Albany reporter, John Campbell, told us that a Democrats just introduced a new map overnight. John will stay on top of this throughout the day, so keep it tuned here to WNYC.

John, terrific job, as always. We'll talk to you a little bit later today as well. Thank you, Michael. Thanks for listening. This is NYC now from WNYC. Be sure to catch us every weekday, three times a day, for your top news headlines and occasional deep dives. Also subscribe wherever you get your podcast.

We'll be back this evening.