Opinion | Who’s Afraid of New York’s New Home Map?

Mr. de Blasio is 6-foot-5, so we’ll give him stature, and he’s obtained historical past all proper: New Yorkers may recall his mayoral behavior of displaying up late. Or the Groundhog Day that he dropped the rodent-of-honor, which died quickly after of inner accidents that the zoo insisted had been unrelated. Two extra candidates, together with Rep.

Mondaire Jones,

even have their hearts set on the tenth district, and it could possibly be a crowded debate.

Then again Rep.

Hakeem Jeffries,

the No. 5 Home Democrat, continues to be caught within the denial stage, or perhaps it’s anger. He informed

CBS

over the weekend that the judiciary “hijacked” redistricting. Final week he complained that the court docket’s map “degraded” the black and Hispanic populations of 4 districts, which he implied was an intentional scheme: “Are you kidding me? That doesn’t occur accidentally.”

The state court docket that supervised the political cartography revealed a memo Saturday that rebuts these sorts of partisan arguments. “Race-based districting is strictly prohibited by the U.S. structure,” writes

Jonathan Cervas,

the particular grasp who drew the map. “Due to this fact I didn’t use race as a preponderant criterion.”

Justice

Patrick McAllister

provides a couple of phrases of his personal. “The court docket will not be politically biased,” he writes. He believes the brand new districts are “virtually completely impartial,” favoring neither Democrats nor Republicans. In addition they give no particular standing to incumbents. “Neither the court docket nor the particular grasp,” the choose says, “obtained any data regarding the place any candidate or potential candidate lives.”

The reality, as a matter of political realism, is that Democrats by no means wished “honest” districts in New York. They wished a gerrymandered map that may assure them further Home seats, and the try blew up of their faces.