Dems’ toxic map quest
The House majority ran through New York in 2022.
The red wave that pundits predicted never made its way ashore nationally, but it definitely washed over the landscape here in New York. Running as one team, we campaigned hard and flipped many House seats from Democrat to Republican in purple, suburban districts.
New Yorkers were able to cast their votes in some of the most competitive races in the country, and we ultimately decided control of the House of Representatives.
Since then, though, to New Yorkers’ significant detriment, rather than stopping the flow of illegal migrants or reducing violent crime, Democrats have been obsessing over how to violate the Constitution, rule of law and will of the people to jam through a hyperpartisan gerrymander of the state’s fair congressional district lines.
For what feels like the millionth time in two years, New Yorkers once again woke up this week wondering who their representatives in Congress are because Democrats keep trying to change the lines.
Corrupt, power-hungry politicians are playing wicked games with these maps, confusing voters and ignoring the state Constitution in the process.
The same leaders who preach to us about “protecting democracy” are fully committed to destroying democracy. They clearly have no regard for the will of voters.
In 2014, New Yorkers approved a statewide constitutional amendment to establish a bipartisan 10-member Independent Redistricting Commission to draw district lines, separating this power from the Legislature. Then, in another statewide vote in 2021, New Yorkers rejected an attempt by Albany Democrats to repeal key portions of the 2014 amendment.
Time and time again, New Yorkers have made it clear: We don’t want hyperpartisan, gerrymandered maps. Yet state Democrats have forced them upon us anyway.
Sore losers
A pattern is emerging with New York Democrats: If they can’t win fairly, they will do everything they can to destroy the playing field and rewrite the rules no matter what damage it causes.
First, when it looked like Republicans had a chance to be competitive in 2022, Albany Democrats drew an extreme gerrymander at the behest of national Democratic Party bosses, in direct violation of the state Constitution.
When Republicans rightly sued and a fair map was established at the state’s highest court, Democrats then chased out the chief judge and stacked the court in their favor.
When Democrats didn’t approve of 2022 election results on those fair maps, they appealed to their newly rigged court to regain control of the redistricting process.
When their suit succeeded, the Independent Redistricting Commission became their new enemy. Directed by the court, the IRC passed a new, bipartisan map.
Even though the IRC map provided Democrats with a greater partisan advantage than the current, competitive map used in the 2022 election, Democrats still threw a temper tantrum and rejected the bipartisan map to pass their own gerrymandered districts.
To further secure their grip on power, Democrats are now fast-tracking legislation to limit New Yorkers’ options to challenge them in court.
Corrupt Albany politicians must end their self-serving power grabs. The greatest attacks on democracy in New York are being launched without apology by the Democrats running this state into the ground. In November, voters of New York should return the favor by being the ones to fill these Democrats with extensive regret.
Lee Zeldin (R) represented Suffolk County in the House of Representatives from 2015-2023 and ran for governor of New York in 2022.
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