A lawsuit filed in New York City on Monday alleges black and Latino voters are being unconstitutionally diluted in the city’s only congressional district represented by a Republican.
The Monday suit was filed by Elias Law Group, a Washington D.C. based firm chaired by well-known Democratic election lawyer Marc Elias, and singled out New York’s 11th district which has been represented by Republican Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, a Latina, since 2021, according to the New York Times (NYT). The action comes after Texas, Missouri, North Carolina and California — pending a vote — have already redrawn their House maps ahead of the 2026 midterms — with several other states such as Virginia and Indiana poised to follow.
The suit argues the district’s current lines “confine Staten Island’s growing Black and Latino communities in a district where they are routinely and systematically unable to influence decisions.” The borough has seen the combined black and Latino population rise from 11% to 30% over the last 40 years, NYT reported.
Malliotakis is the daughter of a Cuban immigrant and grew up speaking Spanish at home. Her solidly Republican district — which President Donald Trump won by over 24 points in 2024 — includes the entirety of Staten Island and several neighborhoods in southern Brooklyn.
“This is a frivolous lawsuit trying to upend our congressional district which was drawn by a court-appointed special master and later enacted into state law by the state’s independent redistricting commission, the Democrat-controlled state legislature and Democrat governor,” the congresswoman told the Daily Caller News Foundation in a statement. “This is a terrible abuse of the legal process by an ultra-partisan Washington law firm that does the bidding of the national Democrat Party in an attempt to tilt the scale to give their party an advantage in next year’s election.”
New York GOP Chairman Ed Cox responded to Monday’s lawsuit, calling it a “frivolous attempt” to evade the state’s constitution and Court of Appeals.
“Now, Democrats attempt another gerrymander of NY-11 by linking Staten Island to Manhattan. The current Staten Island/Brooklyn district is compact, respects communities of interest, and has been approved by both the courts and the State Legislature,” Cox said in a statement. “This latest lawsuit, brought by the same lawyers who previously defended the unconstitutional state gerrymander in 2022, is seeking a blatant racial gerrymander in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.”
“Everyone should see this effort for what it is: a naked attempt to disenfranchise voters in NY-11 and elect a Democrat to this Congressional District contrary to the will of voters.”
The legal action comes on the heels of President Donald Trump endorsing Malliotakis for reelection in a Saturday post to Truth Social.
Elias has long taken a strategy of filing lawsuits against states with maps he deems to be too friendly to the GOP, telling MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace that GOP-controlled states that approve new district lines will face legal action.
“By the way, I can promise [Indiana] they’re going to get sued. Then Florida will pass a new map, and they are definitely gonna get sued, and they’re gonna lose, and Missouri’s gonna pass a new map, and they’re gonna get sued, and they may lose,” Elias had told Wallace in late August.
Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul told MSNBC in August she would do whatever she could to “fight fire with fire” and gerrymander New York in response to the new lines in Texas.
“If we don’t fight for democracy we’re doomed to lose it,” Hochul said. “I’m going to do whatever I can to literally change the constitution of New York state to allow us to have an election with the lines we draw. If this is how they’re going to play the game, we’re going to fight fire with fire.”
Elias Law Group did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
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