A divided Supreme Court on Monday granted an emergency appeal from Republicans seeking to hold on to Rep. Nicole Malliotakis’ New York congressional seat, which covers Staten Island and part of Brooklyn. A New York state judge had ordered the map to be redrawn because it diluted Black and Latino votes.
The high court order came over dissent from the court’s three Democratic appointees. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote for the trio that, by granting the Republican request,“the Court thrusts itself into the middle of every election-law dispute around the country, even as many States redraw their congressional maps ahead of the 2026 election.”
She added that the move “invites parties searching for a sympathetic ear to file emergency applications directly with this Court, without even bothering to ask the state courts first. There is much reason to question whether the majority will exercise its newfound authority wisely, but there is no reason to question this: If you build it, they will come.”
Justice Samuel Alito wrote a concurring opinion explaining why he agreed with the majority’s unexplained order. He wrote that at stake was “a state-court order that blatantly discriminates on the basis of race.” He said Sotomayor’s dissent “is most notable for what it conspicuously omits: even the most tepid imaginable defense of the constitutionality of the trial court’s order.”
It’s the Supreme Court’s latest action affecting the coming midterm elections, after the court approved Texas’ Donald Trump-backed map and then approved California’s Democratic-friendly map, which was passed in response.
Malliotakis launched an urgent appeal to the justices, trying to stop her district from being redrawn into one that would be more friendly to Democrats. Joined by individual voters, the congresswoman said the state judge’s order had injected chaos on the eve of the election. She asked the justices to lift the lower court order by Feb. 23 because nominating petitions can start circulating the following day.
“This appeal involves a baseless challenge to New York’s 11th congressional district (‘CD11’), which has largely maintained the same boundaries since the 1980s,” her Feb. 12 application said. “Congresswoman Malliotakis, the daughter of a Greek immigrant and a Cuban refugee, has represented CD11 since 2020, although both Democrats and Republicans have won CD11 in the last decade.”
Backing Malliotakis, the state’s Republican election board co-chair Peter Kosinski and others told the justices that, unless the high court lifts the lower court’s order, New York’s congressional elections “will be thrown into chaos and uncertainty.”
But challengers to the map, represented by voting rights lawyer Marc Elias, said the Republican appeal was procedurally premature and “contrived” when it comes to timing concerns. They said it’s the Republicans who were threatening to “disrupt orderly elections in New York” because the trial judge’s order “sets forth a clear process that, if permitted to proceed unencumbered, will produce a legislatively approved remedial map in a manner that does not disrupt the upcoming primary elections.”
Likewise, Democratic state officials said in their opposition filing that the appeal should play out normally in the state courts. They wrote that the justices’ intervention “would severely undermine principles of federalism and comity by usurping the role of New York’s appellate courts to address matters of state constitutional interpretation while minimizing potential disruption to the State’s election calendar as much as possible.”
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