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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC and welcome to New York Redistricting Musical Chairs, who wants to play? When the music stops in courtrooms around the state, which current democratic member of Congress won't have a district left to win? One possible Musical Chairs loser is Congressman Hakeem Jeffries whose current district is in parts of Brooklyn and Queens, and he doesn't like the way it came down.

Hakeem Jeffries: The process unfortunately was hijacked by the Court of Appeals, a bad process has now led to a bad result.

Brian Lehrer: Jeffries on CBS Face the Nation yesterday. Let's break this down with WNYC and Gothamist State House correspondent, Jon Campbell, because this is another fine mess that the powers in B, that B in Albany have gotten us into and WNYC senior political reporter, Brigid Bergin, because she sees all and knows all when it comes to how elections work. Hi, Brigid. Hi, John. Welcome back to the show. Do you have your scorecards in hand?

Brigid Bergin: [crosstalk] it all weekend.

Brian Lehrer: Let's start with the premise. Before we get to the premise that upper east side and upper west side Jews aren't as different as they used to be. That was actually in this judge's decision, or this Special Master's decision. Let's start with a premise that'll be important to this whole conversation, and is a fact that I did not know personally until this whole story started to break last week. You do not have to live in the congressional district that you're running to represent. For those of you who just did a double take and went, "What? You what? Would you say that again?" Yes, you did not have to live in the congressional district that you're running to represent. Brigid, I'm still doing double takes on that, so fact check that for me, will you? You don't have to live in the congressional district you're running to represent.

Brigid Bergin: You don't have to live in the congressional district that you're running to represent. You do need to live in the state you're running to represent, and so that is the important distinction. I too was thinking about that over weekend--

Brian Lehrer: Nobody told Dr. Oz that before he ran for Senate in Pennsylvania, but that's another story.

Brigid Bergin: Yes. Another fun redistricting mess in another nearby state, but that's something that when the decision was issued, the first round of decisions, we expected to see potential for what some election attorneys are calling 'District shopping.' That's looking for a district where your odds may be better, and as we talked about earlier today, that's something that we have already seen start to happen with Congressman Mondaire Jones, who represents currently the 17th congressional district up in the Hudson Valley. The way the new lines were drawn, he was potentially facing a primary from Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney, head of the DCCC. If he chose a nearby district, he could have faced a primary from another freshman member, Congressman Jamaal Bowman, also an African-American member like Congressman Jones. Instead of choosing a primary against either of those incumbents, he's tossed his hat in [laughs] the very popular New York 10th district, which covers lower Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn.

Brian Lehrer: That's one head spinning example which'll get to in a little more detail later on, that's the same district that Bill de Blasio has now thrown his hat in the ring for, and a bunch of other people. By the way, one other fun fact that I didn't know until last year along similar lines, you don't have to be a member of Congress to be elected speaker of the house. Wait, what? You don't have to be a member of the House of Representatives to be elected speaker of the house? You don't, and that's why there are these rumors that go around that if the Republicans take control of Congress in the midterm elections this year, they might appoint Donald Trump Speaker of the house. That's just a bit of chatter, but it's based on a rule that will surprise people just as this one about living in your district.

You do not have to be a member of Congress to be elected by the members of Congress to be Speaker of the house. Jon Campbell, this fact becomes relevant as Brigid started to explain because the new maps have drawn several sitting Democrats out of the district that they currently represent. Since we can't tell the players without a scorecard at the moment, does your scorecard have any more of those names besides the several that Brigid already mentioned?

Jon Campbell: Yes. The big one is Carolyn Maloney and Jerrold Nadler in the 12th district that is for years and years and years, the Manhattan was split by the east side and the west side in Congress. That's no longer the case, the Special Master Jonathan Service, he made three Manhattan based districts, basically lower Manhattan, Midtown into the upper, upper east and upper west side, and then upper Manhattan and that has really scrambled everything. Both Carolyn Maloney and Jerrold Nadler, who both took office within a few months of each other 30 years ago, they are two titans of Manhattan politics, of Washington DC politics. They're both congressional committee chairs, and they have both declared for the 12th District and neither of them have backed down. That is going to be a huge race that has huge implications and that's one that we're going to be watching closely.

Brian Lehrer: Negative campaigning. It's hard to imagine Jerrold Nadler attacking Carolyn Maloney or Carolyn Maloney attacking Jerrold Nadler, given their histories, but is that what we're in for?

Jon Campbell: We've already seen some kind of, I'd call it, sub-tweeting, is between the two. You've seen Carolyn Maloney say, "Hey, this is my district. I live in it. That's where I'm running." She has suggested that maybe somebody else running may feel a little entitled to this district. I wonder who she might be referring to there. Listen, tough races that are tight in the polls they almost always go negative. I'd be surprised if we didn't see it quite frankly.

Brian Lehrer: Since you mentioned the upper east side, upper west side thing, I did see one article that said there was a reference to upper east side Jews and upper west side Jews not being as different, I guess, politically or socioeconomically or demographically than they were in the past and that was part of the rationale for combining the two.

Jon Campbell: Yes. It wasn't necessarily-- How that all came about is the Special Master Jonathan Service, a Carnegie Mellon University's post-doctoral fellow who was selected by the courts to draw these maps. He put out a set of draft maps last Monday, a week ago of today. Then there was a public comment period through Wednesday, and there were some concerns raised by Jewish groups that they wrote in very extensively to the Special Master, to the court saying, "Hey, don't think that all Jews are the same, basically. There are major differences between some of the Jewish areas on the upper east side and on the upper west side and think about what that means when you're combining them."

Jonathan Service in response, he did write out a paragraph in this court ruling about why he chose to keep the upper east side and upper west side together. He didn't specifically mention those concerns raised by Jewish groups, but he did say that in these days, there was a time where there were major economic and demographic differences between the upper east side and the upper west side, but that's not really as strongly distinguished as they once were. Those were his words. He said it was a hard choice, but he didn't find a compelling argument to break apart what he had.

Brian Lehrer: I see, Campbell to the concerns raised by Jewish groups. Listeners, your questions welcome here about what congressional district your home is now in, and who's going to run against home to represent you or anything related for WNYC and Gothamist political reporters, Jon Campbell and Brigid Bergin 212-433-WNYC. 212-433-9692. Do take notes on the answers, there will be a quiz on primary day. Oh, wait. When is primary day, Brigid?

Brigid Bergin: [laughs] Well, that's an excellent question, Brian, because they're at this point and I put an asterisk by this answer. There are currently two primary days. There is June 28th for the statewide primaries and for the assembly district primaries, and then there's August 23rd. That will be for the state's Senate primaries and for these congressional primaries, these very interesting congressional primaries. That stems from the fact that the court decision that was reached by Judge McAllister was based on a challenge to just the state's Senate and the congressional district lines.

The asterisk that I mentioned stems from the fact that there are additional court cases pending, including one today where there are some Republican activists in state Supreme court in Manhattan seeking to challenge those assembly district lines and get those maps tossed out, and then also to get the primary date moved for those races potentially to either that August date or a date in September.

Brian Lehrer: The League of Women Voters is in court seeking a September rather than August congressional primary date, right?

Brigid Bergin: They are seeking to see the primaries moved until September, all the primaries.

Brian Lehrer: All the primaries? The gubernatorial one that's still scheduled for June, if the League of Women Voters wins in court, that would be moved to September, too.

Brigid Bergin: That's correct. That is what is pending for Wednesday.

Brian Lehrer: What's their argument?

Brigid Bergin: Part of what their argument is it relates to the chaos of this entire process, but then also they know that the candidates who are on the statewide ballot had to submit petitions that-- You needed to collect a certain number of signatures based on the congressional districts, and since those congressional district lines have been ruled unconstitutional, that these candidates have not fulfilled their obligations, haven't met that process. That's part of their argument. It's really a process argument, but it'll be interesting to see, and it's something that, I think, puts a lot of-- It puts a lot of importance on conversations like these, that we continue to tell voters what's happening so they know when these elections are since we are on this very strange off-cycle sequence of primary elections.

Brian Lehrer: I think Bud in Manhattan wants to put an issue into play in the Carolyn Maloney-Jerrold Nadler primary. Bud, you're on WNYC, thank you for calling in.

Bud: Hello, hi. Yes, I believe that an issue that might be in the race-- If, well, Carolyn Maloney and Jerry Nadler will be running against each other, I believe an issue might be the 2002 vote on the Iraq war resolution. They voted opposite, Nadler voted against it, Carolyn Maloney voted for the war and the weapons of mass destruction rhetoric. I believe that may be an issue in this race.

Brian Lehrer: Interesting, Bud. Thank you very much. Brigid, you want to take a guess at this? I think we're just speculating at this point, but that vote was, of course, 20 years ago, but we saw, for example, in the 2008, which is a long time ago now, too, presidential primaries how Hillary Clinton's initial support for the war really hurt her against Barack Obama. Do you think that comes up as an issue in 2022 between Nadler and Maloney?

Brigid Bergin: I think, given the history of these candidates, that there's a lot that has potential for coming up as issues. I think it's important to remember that they are not going to be the only candidates running in this race. We've already seen one candidate, Suraj Patel, who ran against Carolyn Maloney in 2020, and ran a pretty fierce race against her in 2020 has declared that he is still running in this race. I think the shape of these conversations will depend on the entirety of the field which we don't know well yet.

Brian Lehrer: We're going to go up to Orange County now and take a call from Don on his current member of Congress being redistricted. This current member of Congress is a prominent Democrat who is now, I saw him the other day, getting ripped on MSNBC of all places in relation to this issue. Don in Orange County, you're on WNYC, hello.

Don: Hi, Brian. A loyal follower of you and also of Sean Maloney. He is my congressman. He's been on the right side, from my perspective, of every issue. We're really glad to have him, and, of course, it's upsetting to discover that it's possible we may lose him, although I think Mondaire is probably a terrific congressman, albeit not a senior. Last week you gave out the e-mail address, and I did write to the special master of whoever is the judge and mentioned that, at least find a way to do this redistricting without losing some important and wonderful, excellent representatives.

Coincidentally, Jerry Nadler used to be my representative when I lived in Westchester. Again, we're dealing with losing people who are outstanding representatives. One of the things that has upset me, even though I'm a strong supporter of Sean, was learning that he plans to resign from the 18th and run against Mondaire in the 17th. That was a little bit upsetting information.

Brian Lehrer: Don, thank you very much. Somebody's going to lose a district. The judge couldn't completely satisfy what Don was asking for, not to lose anybody, because this is all happening after the census forced New York State to lose a congressional seat because other states are growing faster. Where does that congressional seat come from? Who gets put most at risk among the incumbents from either party across New York State? That's how all this scrambling started. Jon, let's talk about Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney.

I think his decision to run in a different district than the one he was representing is sparking the most outrage of anything that I've seen. His Hudson Valley district no longer contains his house according to the new lines. He, as Brigid said before, is also head of the DCCC, that's the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, meaning that it's his job to lead all these endangered Democrats in swing districts like his around the country to campaign just the right way to hold their seats, but what Sean Patrick Maloney is doing that's getting him ripped on MSNBC, like I saw the other night with Chris Hayes and by other progressives, is that he seems to be running away from that fight himself. Is that what he's doing?

Jon Campbell: Basically, in the Hudson Valley, and I'm going to call that from like Westchester up to Poughkeepsie, there's three districts. In these newly-drawn districts, you've got the 16th, the 17th, the 18th. Sean Patrick Maloney lives in the 17th District but just barely. He lives in Cold Spring in Putnam County, it's right on the Hudson River, and at that point in the district, the Hudson River is the dividing line between the 17th and the 18th District. The 18th District includes Orange County where our caller was from, and that was, really, the base of his district, or is the base of his district right now.

He chose to run in the 17th District. He made that announcement within minutes of the draft maps coming out last Monday. The 17th District, the bulk of that district is Mondaire Jones's district right now. That infuriated people because then that forced Mondaire Jones to pick which district he might want to run in, that meant either a primary against Sean Patrick Maloney or a primary against Jamaal Bowman in the 16th District where he lives, just across the border in the 16th District, Mondaire Jones, I should say.

Then Mondaire Jones threw this curveball over the weekend, and he says he's running in the 10th District, which is Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn.

Sean Patrick Maloney made a lot of enemies by what he did there, choosing to run in the 17th District rather than the 18th District, which is primarily his district right now. Mondaire Jones really surprised the people with that curveball he threw. Like we said earlier, you don't have to live in your congressional district to represent it. I would assume he would pledge to move there at some point. Practically speaking, it's pretty difficult to run in a district and allow your opponents that line of attack if you don't live there. That was a curveball from Mondaire Jones, so now you don't have that Sean Patrick Maloney-Mondaire Jones primary, but you do have this wide-open race in the 10th District with any number of people running.

Brian Lehrer: That's the Bill de Blasio district, right, Brigid?

Brigid Bergin: Yes, it is. That was some news that the former mayor announced last week. Big shout-out to our colleague, Liz Kim, who was one of the first people to sit down with him last week to talk about why he was running. Keep in mind, as he did on your show recently, Brian, the former mayor has been talking a lot about the Democratic Party needing to communicate clearly and have a message. I thought it was interesting when Liz asked him what his pitch was for running in this district. He talked about how people were hurting, but that he would be saying a lot more about that soon, so not necessarily a specific message, but I know we will be hearing a lot more from him in that race and, certainly, on-air and on Gothamist.

There's another important candidate to consider in that race who also announced this weekend, who we'll be hearing more from, and that's Assembly Member Yuh-Line Niou, who represents Chinatown in Lower Manhattan, certainly has much deeper roots in the district than, for example, Congressman Jones. Those are three very progressive candidates that voters in the district will get to choose from in addition to whoever else jumps into that race. I think that will be a really fascinating primary to watch and potentially great for participation. Competitive races have the potential for really engaging voters since you've got so many different candidates who are really trying to speak to the issues that matter. It's a late summer primary, so we're going to need to do everything we can to keep people engaged and turnout.

Brian Lehrer: Refresh my memory about one other thing about that district, Brigid, unless you just said it, but there are all these candidates running in that 10th congressional district primary, now, Lower Manhattan and some of Brooklyn. Bill de Blasio, Yuh-Line Niou, Mondaire Jones. Who's the current member?

Brigid Bergin: My understanding is it cuts into what was Congresswoman Nydia Velázquez's district. The new district that she is now part of is the neighboring district, and she has said that she will, correct me if I'm wrong, Jon, I believe she's going to not run in the 10th and will stay with the district that is more of the district that she formally represented.

Jon Campbell: Yes, with the way they cut the Manhattan districts, really, it is unrecognizable to the former districts. Nydia Velázquez lives in the Brooklyn part of that district, but she says she's running in the 7th district, not the 10th, and that's the main thing. That came out over the weekend as well. There's been this scramble of candidates. It ends up with this open seat because Jerry Nadler is deciding to run in the 12th instead of the 10th. and Nydia Velázquez is running in the 7th instead of the 10th.

Brian Lehrer: This is WN-- Go ahead, Brigid. Go ahead.

Brigid Bergin: I just want to make a quick note about one of the lawsuits we were talking about, the League of Women Voters lawsuits specifically, which is in federal court on Wednesday, that's only related to moving the statewide primaries and they are talking about an August 23rd date. The state Supreme Court case that is in court today related to the assembly lines, it's talking about August or September.

Brian Lehrer: Oh, boy.

Brigid Bergin: Just to clarify.

Brian Lehrer: The League of Women Voters' main concern is that the primaries take place on the same day to not reduce turnout so much by having two separate primary days in the summer. That's what it sounds like then.

Brigid Bergin: The process that those statewide candidates petitioned to get on the ballot, the validity of that process.

Brian Lehrer: This is WNYC FM HD and AM New York, WNJT FM 88.1 Trenton, WNJP 88.5 Sussex, WNJY 89.3 Netcom, and WNJO 90.3 Toms River. We are in New York and New Jersey Public Radio and always live streaming@wnyc.org. Few more minutes with our Brigid Bergin and Jon Campbell as we try to unscramble what a judge in a special master has done to the congressional districts in New York State, the apparently final versions of which came out early Saturday morning.

Here's the tweet that asks the question about that. Brigid, I'll throw this to you. The tweet says Jeffries accused the judge who accepted the new districts of being a Republican partisan. What does your guests say about that? I'm not sure Jeffries's explicitly accused him of being a Republican partisan as opposed to just messing the whole thing up, but maybe he did and I didn't see that. Do you know?

Brigid Bergin: I think part of the--

Brian Lehrer: Go ahead, Jon, if you know. Go ahead.

Brigid Bergin: Go ahead, Jon.

Jon Campbell: Democrats Hakeem Jeffries, in particular, have accused this judge of being a Republican partisan. He selected this special master. The judge's name is Patrick McAllister. He was elected as a Republican in Steuben County. He actually addressed that in his court order that came out just after midnight on Saturday, and he said, "Listen, you can look at the maps, you can analyze the maps. These are not Republican partisan maps. They score well on the various scales used to assess partisanship and compactness and continuity for maps which are important in mapmaking."

He directly responded to that criticism. Now, that being said, you just said this, Brian, you said something to the effect of apparently final maps. Hakeem Jeffries and Sean Patrick Maloney, both Democratic Congressman, they have hinted at the possibility of some lawsuit to try to get these overturned.

Brian Lehrer: Even now.

Jon Campbell: Even now. That could be an appeal on the state level. That could be some federal lawsuit alleging violations of the Voting Rights Act by cracking apart Black neighborhoods. There still could be some lawsuit. We are just swimming in redistricting lawsuits now and there still could be more on the way.

Brian Lehrer: Brigid, who is the court-appointed special master who drew these district lines which will probably wind up with fewer Democrats being elected to Congress from New York State, and the original lines drawn by the state legislature, which were thrown out by the court is too gerrymandered for the Democrats. I see his name and title this Court Appointed Special Master, Jonathan Cervas, postdoctoral fellow at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, as you cited his title before. Does postdoctoral fellow mean he's like a student?

Brigid Bergin: Well, he cites in the bio that he included in this decision that was released that my good friend Jon stayed up very late on Saturday night to write about and report for Saturday morning.

Brian Lehrer: Friday night to Saturday morning.

Brigid Bergin: Exactly. Thank you. It's all a bit of a blur at this point. He has worked on several other redistricting. He is considered an expert and even in my conversations with election lawyers, who are here in New York, I rarely heard anyone make the type of criticisms that we heard from Congressman Jeffries about the special master. I think that he is considered to be someone who is an expert with experience in this area.

The process does raise some questions. Here we had the court case held in Bath, New York, which is in Steuben County. It's a rural part of the southern tier of New York State. There was a one-day hearing prior to the draft maps being released, I should note, but there was a one-day hearing for the public to give input, and to get their meant figuring out a way to get to this part of New York State where there is not some easy accessible public transportation hours by bus or a long car ride.

As noted in that initial draft, there were some neighborhoods, one in particular, Bed-Stuy, that was cracked in half that made people think that these were people who did not understand the historical significance of some of these district lines, why that district existed, why that was a historical district to begin with, some of which was addressed in the final version that he issued on Saturday morning/late Friday night.

Brian Lehrer: He did put Bed-Stuy in particular back together as part of one district. Why Carnegie Mellon, Jon? Why go to Carnegie Mellon? Last I looked Pittsburgh was not a city in New York state.

Jon Campbell: Well, it's closer than the last consultant that was used in 2012, who was, I believe, from Stanford University. There aren't that many mapmaking experts here. The judge had the ability to hire whomever he wanted. He got that ability from the appellate division were granted to him. He went with Jonathan Cervas the judge did. He thanked him and said he commended the work that he did in this ruling. The other thing Jonathan Cervas, he just had come off of being a consultant for the Pennsylvania redistricting process.

He was fresh. He has a good resume in terms of this being his area of expertise.

Now, some people did question that resume and whether or not he had enough experience to do this, but the judge commended his work. The other thing, it is a Republican trial court judge, but every court that took a look at this sided with the Republican argument here. It was a Republican trial court judge in a Republican county, but the Democratic Court of Appeals they certified the ruling.

Brian Lehrer: Brigid, the kind of national context for this, as we've done in separate segments on the show, and we're not going to dwell on it here right now because we're looking at the particular districts as they came down, but the big national context really is a lot of Republican states courts allow their Republican majorities to gerrymander the districts very much in favor of Republicans getting more seats in Congress. When New York Democrats tried to do the same thing for themselves in this round, a Democratic Governor-Appointed Court of Appeals threw it out. There's this unilateral disarmament issue at play, but I just want to touch one other district, Jon, that you wrote up in Gothamist, and that's on Long Island, was the island going to be split more east-west or more north-south? That changed over the weekend too, didn't it?

Jon Campbell: Yes. The island was going to be more east-west, really, which is a change from how it's been in the past. There was a lot of public comment that said, "Hey, the issues that face the north shore of Long Island are different from the issues that face the south shore." That led to this rescramble on Long island. Now you have the second district, which goes along the south shore, includes a little bit of Nassau County and then a big chunk of the south shore in Suffolk County. Then you have opposite the first district you have the north shore of Suffolk County. Then it wraps around and grabs Montauk and those areas on the very Eastern end of Long Island. That was another area where there was a big change from the draft map to the final map. Basically, the special master said he was compelled by the public comments to change it to a more of a North Shore, South Shore situation rather than east-west on Long Island.

Brian Lehrer: We will leave it there. Final district maps. That's the word final with an asterisk, because as you heard, some sitting members of Congress may yet challenge these maps. The primaries coming on June 28th and August 23rd, unless they're not. We thank WNYC's Brigid Bergin and Jon Campbell for filling us in on so much of this this morning. Watch this space, listen to this space. We will keep you abreast. Thanks, Jon. Thanks, Brigid.

Jon Campbell: Thank you.

Brigid Bergin: Thank you, Brian.

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