2022 NYC Redistricting: Insights & Predictions
In New York City, everything we do is big. If you ask the average New Yorker, you’ll probably hear that the challenges the City faces today feel especially big – a shelter system at its breaking point, office occupancy rates at just 47%, a looming $10 billion budget deficit, and crime that is stubbornly high.
Against this difficult backdrop, NYC’s decennial legislative redistricting process is well underway, providing a good look under the hood of the city’s political ecosystem. Alongside the Mayor, it is the City’s 51 City Council Members – sometimes underestimated as minor political players – who drive decisions in areas of top priority to New Yorkers including school funding, business regulations, and housing development.
NYC’s redistricting process happens every 10 years after the release of the U.S. Census data, following similar processes to redraw lines for the New York State legislature and Congressional maps. The location of district lines determines who votes for which candidates. Adjustments to the lines will change the relevant voters, which can have a significant impact on the identity, allegiance, and political priorities of the elected Council Member – and of the district as a whole.
For these reasons, Fontas Advisors has been closely tracking the progress of the redistricting process. Later this morning the NYC Districting Commission will hold a public vote to submit its latest proposal to the City Council. Today’s vote represents a critical milestone in the City’s redistricting process, which kicked off in March 2022. Assuming the members of the Commission are satisfied with its latest maps, the proposal will then advance to the City Council.
Here are our insights and predictions as the NYC redistricting process moves forward.
(Almost) Nobody will be happy
Although we don’t predict a Nadler/Maloney situation, which pitted two veteran lawmakers competing for the same seat for NY-10th Congressional District, we expect few elected officials and stakeholders will be happy with the final maps for the City Council districts.
Change in politics is always painful. Unsurprisingly, redistricting will bring inevitable disruption that will cause elected officials to lose constituencies that they’ve spent a career nurturing. Likewise, local communities and ethnic neighborhoods may be divided into different districts, possibly weakening their overall political strength.
For example, the original redistricting proposal divided Rochdale Village, a large and distinct Black community in Queens, removing it from the 28th District (where it represented the majority) and splitting it into the 27th and 28th Districts (where it would now be a minority in both). Needless to say this received strong and swift criticism from the local City Council Members and civic leaders.
On the other hand, very different communities could be merged into the same district, which is also viewed unfavorably. The initial proposal called for the Gravesend/Coney Island district to merge with Bensonhurst, Bath Beach, and Dyker Heights; three communities that share few of the same attributes or priorities with Gravesend and Coney Island. This proposal has also received significant negative feedback and is currently being reconsidered.
Why does this matter? Redistricting will have a direct effect on the outcome of legislation, city funding priorities, and business interests that require City Council approval, such as land use actions. New constituencies mean new politics. This could spell trouble for a long-planned rezoning, for example, by putting the project under the purview of a new Council Member that is likely to be less familiar with (and potentially less supportive) of the developer’s goals.
While there will undoubtedly be changes across all 51 districts, there will certainly be clear winners and losers. We anticipate that the most notable victor will be Brooklyn’s significant Asian population, based primarily in Sunset Park and Bensonhurst – two very different neighborhoods which are likely to find their power consolidated into one district where they will represent the majority. The Commission has been vocal about its aim to create a majority Asian district in Brooklyn, commensurate with this ethnic group’s significant population rise of 43% in that borough since 2010.
Calls to expand the size of the City Council will go unanswered
As a result of the 1991 redistricting process, the City Council expanded from 35 to 51 seats to reflect the city’s growing population. Since then, NYC has exploded to a population of 8.8 million today (up from 7.3 million in 1991). However, no new council districts have been added in the last two rounds of redistricting in 2002 and 2012.
Throughout our current redistricting process, there has been a steady drum beat of advocacy led by Council Member Justin Brannan (D43) and leaders from Queens’ Southeast Asian communities calling for a major expansion of the City Council. These stakeholders want to add as many as eight additional districts to better reflect the added diversity of people, cultures, and communities that comprise the city today.
However, expanding the size of the City Council would be highly disruptive and we cannot see the Commission supporting these changes at this time. Such a decision would weaken historically powerful communities, which could see their voters carved up across multiple districts, ultimately diluting their influence. This has the potential to make the fight for funding and programs even more fierce as there would be a greater number of elected officials fighting over the same limited resources.
Perhaps the biggest reason why the Council’s size will remain unchanged is that the addition of new districts will be an open invitation to the Far Left, which has had strong success in the low turnout elections of the past four years. Expect moderate Democrats to aggressively exert their influence over the redistricting process to keep the number of districts constant to avoid losing further ground.
Despite heavy advocacy from Staten Island, one of the borough’s districts will bleed into Brooklyn
Initially, the 2022 Districting Commission kept the status quo on Staten Island, meaning that each of the borough’s three districts were fully contained on the island and did not include communities from any other borough. This had the potential to be a win for Minority Leader Joe Borelli, a Staten Island Republican Council Member who prioritized this objective. However, the ripple effects of maintaining the purity of the three Staten Island districts are likely to be too big to overcome, resulting in one district (D50) that crosses borough lines.
Neighboring communities – especially those in Brooklyn – have complained that the three solely Staten Island districts would be substantially smaller than those across the rest of the City, ultimately not meeting the minimum population size set by law. In addition, such changes would have resulted in dramatic adjustments to at least three other districts in Brooklyn, creating the dreaded situation with two incumbent Council Members running against each other.
This may seem like a minor event but a combined SI-BK district has been a point of contention for decades. Since the 1991 redistricting, Staten Island District 50 has bled into Brooklyn in the neighborhoods surrounding the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. This has generated endless constituent complaints from Brooklynites in the district who were concerned that their Council Member prioritized the needs of the Staten Island communities over their own. It also put added pressure on neighboring Council Members (Districts 43 and 47) to represent people who were geographically part of their local community, but technically not in their districts. In 2012 the Districting Commission addressed the issue by drawing three council districts wholly contained within Staten Island. However, we expect the current Commission to reverse some of these decisions.
As a result, we could see weaker representation of the communities in South Brooklyn which are likely to be represented by a Staten Island-based Council Member. In the current environment of budget cuts, this could have a negative effect on the quality of city services these communities receive, making them potentially less desirable places to live.
The Speaker of the City Council will leverage redistricting as a pivotal moment to build political capital
We’ve described 2022 as a “leadership cliff” in NYC government in part due to the massive turnover in the City Council, with 36 of 51 new members and entirely new leadership, led by the Speaker of the City Council, Adrienne Adams. The current redistricting process represents Speaker Adams’ strongest moment for influence to date as it will be her responsibility to respond to the Districting Commission’s proposed maps on behalf of the City Council. We expect her to adeptly leverage this process to strengthen her influence among her peers.
Given the complexity of the Council, the Speaker typically strives for strict and disciplined control of the local legislature, keeping Members in line on policy and staff on top of key issues. The Speaker’s challenge is to “herd 50 cats” – Council Members who all have different priorities, political pressures, and approaches to governing. The Speaker needs the support of these peers to further any of her own objectives. Ultimately, in order to maintain power and influence, she must listen to the concerns and priorities of her colleagues and advocate on their behalf too.
Once the Districting Commission releases approved maps, the baton will be passed to Speaker Adams to formally make her mark on the process. She has already expressed opposition to creating three Staten Island-only districts, diluting the Latino voice by splitting up the Red Hook-Sunset Park district, and marginalizing Black and Southeast Asian voters in Southeast Queens.