Top House Democrat Launches Campaign for New York to Join Mid-Decade Redistricting Fight

House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) on May 4 publicly called on New York state to redraw its congressional map, dispatching Rep. Joe Morelle (D-N.Y.) to the state capital of Albany on May 5 for meetings with Gov. Kathy Hochul, a fellow Democrat, and the state’s top legislative leaders.

The initiative, which Jeffries labeled the New York Democracy Project, is the latest escalation in the nationwide redistricting fight spurred by Texas’s new map last year. It is the first official push by House Democrats to recruit New York to join California and Virginia in the mid-decade redistricting, as Republican-led states have also moved to redraw their own maps before the 2026 midterms.

Jeffries said the push was a direct response to the Supreme Court’s April 29 ruling in Louisiana v. Callais and to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s signing a new map into law on May 4 that could add four Republican-leaning seats to the state’s congressional delegation.

The Supreme Court ruled 6–3 in Callais that Louisiana’s redrawn congressional map was unconstitutional because race, impermissibly, was the predominant factor in drawing the lines. Democrats said the decision narrows Section 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The ruling has already prompted Republican officials in many southern states to discuss or begin their own redistricting efforts.

“While far-right extremists on the Supreme Court have twice recklessly cleared the path for partisan gerrymandering, Democrats refuse to unilaterally disarm,” Jeffries said in a statement. “Today, I have asked Ranking Member Morelle, the former Majority Leader in the New York State Assembly, to travel to Albany to meet with State leaders [on May 5] on redrawing New York’s congressional districts for the balance of the decade in response to the Callais decision and the recent action in Florida.”

Morelle, the ranking Democrat on the House Committee on House Administration, is scheduled to meet with Hochul, state Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, and state Senate Deputy Majority Leader Michael Gianaris, according to the announcement.

According to the joint statement, Morelle will encourage state leaders to weigh a legal review of New York’s options to “protect voting rights,” a possible 2027 state constitutional amendment along the lines of a bill from Gianaris, state-level safeguards against what the statement describes as voter suppression, protections for election workers, and coordination with national civil rights and legal organizations.

“As [President] Donald Trump and his Republican allies intensify extreme partisan redistricting efforts, I am proud to be entrusted by Leader Jeffries to work with partners in New York to explore every option to protect voters in 2026, 2028, and beyond,” Morelle said in the statement.

The announcement comes after weeks of Jeffries accusing GOP-led redraws of being an effort to rig the 2026 midterms. He pointed to what he described as Democratic wins on the redistricting front such as California’s Proposition 50, a Virginia referendum, and a court-ordered map redraw in one Utah district that was favorable to Democrats.

“This is just the beginning,” Jeffries said in the statement. “Across the nation, we will sue, we will redraw and we will win. House Democrats will not allow a [Make America Great Again] majority to be built on rigged maps and the dilution of Black voting strength.”

Hochul’s office, asked for comment on May 4, pointed The Epoch Times to an April 29 X post from the governor made following the Supreme Court’s Callais ruling.

“The Supreme Court has been chipping away at our elections for years,” Hochul wrote last week.

“New York has always led the fight for voting rights and we’ll lead again. I’m working with the Legislature to change New York’s redistricting process so we can fight back against Washington’s attempts to rig our democracy.”

National Republican Redistricting Trust Executive Director Adam Kincaid responded to the move in an email to The Epoch Times, saying, “I guess it’s time for Hochul and Jeffries’ annual attempt to illegally gerrymander New York and roll back the state’s twice-voter-approved redistricting commission.”

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

Troy Myers and Matthew Vadum contributed to this report.