The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday blocked a New York trial-court order that would likely have reshaped the state’s 11th Congressional District—home to Staten Island and a small portion of Brooklyn—and made the seat more favorable to Democrats. The district is represented by Republican Rep. Nicole Malliotakis.
On Jan. 21, a New York state Supreme Court judge concluded that the existing map diluted the voting strength of Black and Latino residents in violation of the state constitution. Malliotakis and the Republican co-chair of the New York State Board of Elections immediately asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stay the redrawing, arguing the change would amount to an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. New York’s congressional candidate filing period was scheduled to begin Feb. 24.
The Trump administration backed the Republican appeal, as it has supported other mid-decade redistricting requests this year. New York voters and state officials urged the high court not to intervene yet, saying the state’s highest court had not issued a final judgment and warning that early intervention would encourage bypassing state appeals.
The court’s unsigned majority order—explained in 101 words—granted a stay while the litigation proceeds through New York’s appeals courts. The stay will remain in place through any subsequent U.S. Supreme Court review if the court agrees to hear an appeal, extending until the court issues a final ruling. The order did not lay out the justices’ detailed legal reasoning.
Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented. In their dissent, Sotomayor cautioned that allowing review of nonfinal state trial-court decisions would make “every decision from any court… fair game” and risk thrusting the Supreme Court into election-law disputes across the country as states prepare new maps ahead of 2026. The dissent criticized the majority’s approach as applying different rules to different litigants.
The court’s intervention in New York marks a departure from its earlier, more hands-off posture in several midterm redistricting disputes this term. In other recent matters, the justices declined to block newly drawn maps in Texas and California, allowing a Democratic-leaning California map and a GOP-favored Texas map to move forward. Some observers said those opposing shifts could offset one another politically.
The high court is also considering a long-running voting-rights redistricting case from Louisiana, which has spanned two terms. The justices ordered a second round of arguments after adding a question about whether creating a second majority-Black district—if done intentionally—violates the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments and related congressional enforcement powers. After that expansion of the issues, Louisiana reversed course and opposed the map it had previously defended. Commentators noted that the tone of October’s arguments suggested the court’s conservative majority may further narrow the reach of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.