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Elizabeth Shwe: Hey, everyone. Welcome to NYC NOW. I'm Elizabeth Shwe. There's a redistricting fight brewing on Staten Island's North Shore after a judge ruled the current congressional map disenfranchises Black and Latino voters. Now, some residents are debating whether they belong politically with Lower Manhattan instead of the rest of the borough. We'll explain what's at stake. First, here's what's happening around the city.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani has named five new members to the Rent Guidelines Board, including a new chair. They can determine whether rents are frozen for about a million rent-stabilized apartments. The nine-member panel votes each year on how much landlords can raise rents. Mamdani campaigned on a pledge to "freeze the rent," but he can't order that himself. The board makes that decision. Landlord groups say increases are needed to cover rising costs. Tenant advocates say many renters are struggling and need relief. The new board will cast its first vote later this year.

NYPD data shows that major crimes on the subway have increased 17% in the first five weeks of the year compared to the same period last year. Both the NYPD and crime data experts say that dangerously cold temperatures have brought more people and more crime into the subways. Here's Paul Reeping, a public safety researcher with the nonprofit Vital City.

Paul Reeping: I think that it makes complete sense, like a logical sense that perhaps people who are committing these crimes are more likely to go underground right now comparatively to be above ground because it's just warmer.

Elizabeth Shwe: Crime outside of subways during the same period is down 7.5%. The increase in transit crime is another weather challenge for Mayor Mamdani, who's also facing criticism after a number of New Yorkers died died during the recent cold.

City lawmakers and budget watchdogs are pushing back against Mayor Mamdani's budget ultimatum, even including some of his supporters. He says the more than $5 billion budget gap must be closed by raising income taxes on the rich and corporations, which requires approval in Albany. If that doesn't happen, Mamdani says he'll be forced to raise property taxes. Councilmember Lincoln Restler support Mamdani's plan to tax the rich, but he says he doesn't think raising property taxes is the only alternative.

Lincoln Restler: The City Council has the authority to increase property taxes. It's not the thing that we want to do. It's not the optimal choice, and we'll be looking at every option to try and avoid that.

Elizabeth Shwe: The council will conduct its own review of city finances ahead of the budget oversight hearings next month. A final budget agreement is due by July 1st.

Up next, a redistricting fight is unfolding on Staten Island's North Shore that some say highlights disparities in the borough. More on that after the break.

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Janae Pierre: I'm Janae Pierre. A state Supreme Court judge has ruled that New York's 11th Congressional District violates the state constitution by diluting the political power of Black and Hispanic residents. That has set off a redistricting fight over how Staten Island is represented in Congress and questions about whether the island's North Shore has more in common with Manhattan than it does the rest of Staten Island. WNYC's Brigid Bergin has been talking to residents along the North Shore about what life is like on their corner of the Rock. What's up, Brigid?

Brigid Bergin: Hey, Janae.

Janae Pierre: Can you explain this lawsuit to us?

Brigid Bergin: It was filed back in October, and it was challenging the boundaries of the 11th Congressional District. A lower court judge ruled that the boundary lines were unconstitutional. The judge found that they actually disenfranchised Black and Latino voters by diluting their votes. A majority of those voters live in the North Shore of Staten Island. He ordered that the district should be redrawn. There's a state commission that's responsible for drawing the congressional districts. Republicans immediately appealed, and they actually appealed to both of the state's higher courts and warned that they would go all the way to the US Supreme Court, and that's what they've done.

Janae Pierre: Brigid, I remember there were a lot of court fights about redistricting back in New York a few years ago. What's the big deal with this one?

Brigid Bergin: This is a district that's represented by the only Republican member of New York City's congressional delegation, a woman named Nicole Malliotakis. It really highlights just how much different the North Shore is from the rest of Staten Island. At the same time, we're seeing cases about redistricting play out across the country. There are cases in Texas, California, Florida.

It's really kind of like this redistricting arms race where Democrats and Republicans are basically pulling every trick out of the book to try and skew the maps in their favor because they want to take control of the House in these midterm elections. With control of the House hanging in the balance, President Trump isn't mincing words about what a Republican loss could mean for him.

Donald Trump: You got to win the midterms, because if we don't win the midterms, it's just going to be-- I mean, they'll find a reason to impeach me, I'll get impeached.

Janae Pierre: I definitely thought gerrymandering was considered a bad thing, right?

Brigid Bergin: Yes. Except now with the Supreme Court opening the door to basically this type of gamesmanship, it's just because become a part of political life. We have to caution that there's a really strong chance that New York might get knocked out of being a player in this redistricting battle because of the timing of this court fight.

I spoke with Jeff Weiss, he's sort of the local redistricting guru over at New York Law School. He runs a redistricting institute there. He said, we're basically watching a national turf war play out state by state.

Jeff Weiss: Well, we're seeing the national mid-decade redistricting wars play out district by district, state by state. New York has become one of those states in play.

Janae Pierre: From what you've told me, it's obvious to me that the Democrats have brought this case, but what exactly do they want here?

Brigid Bergin: It was filed by four Democratic voters, two big law firms, but the name to note is the Elias Group, and that is a law firm led by Marc Elias.

Janae Pierre: Elias Group. Okay.

Brigid Bergin: Yes. Marc Elias is basically this hotshot Democratic lawyer. He's worked for a couple of Democratic presidential candidates. The plaintiffs in this lawsuit actually made a suggestion. They proposed changing the district lines to combine Staten Island with Lower Manhattan. That's because there have been demographic shifts that have made their populations more similar.

Janae Pierre: What does the North Shore and Lower Manhattan have in common?

Brigid Bergin: The plaintiffs would argue that it would give Black and Latino residents in the North Shore an opportunity to actually elect a candidate of their choice, which they've been unsuccessful in doing in recent elections. As opposed to the way the district is currently drawn, which is all of Staten Island combined with a portion of South Brooklyn, which they argue is diluting the votes of these Black and Latino voters.

Janae Pierre: Can you describe the North Shore for us?

Brigid Bergin: When you think of Staten Island, you might think suburbs, you might think cars. The North Shore is different from that. This neighborhood, St. George, where I was, you're right near the Staten Island Ferry. It's much denser. You've got apartment buildings and NYCHA complexes along with some single family homes. There's a lot of diversity. Why don't I just take you there and introduce you to some of the people I met?

Hey, I'm from--

Bao-chin Keen: You're from a podcast?

Brigid Bergin: Yes, a radio station, sort of like an old fashioned podcast.

I met a Woman named Bao-chin Keen. She's about 40 years old. She told me she is not into politics, but she knows her own experience and what she thinks is different between the North Shore and the rest of Staten Island. As I was talking to her, she was with some friends. They duck into a liquor store, and I asked her, what was it like to live there?

What do you think about this area?

Bao-chin Keen: Oh, I look at this as like Gotham City.

Brigid Bergin: Tell me more.

Bao-chin Keen: I feel like it's Gotham City. This is a mixture of everything down here. I know people watch DC and Marvel, 'cause you got the theater. It's like they trying to build upper class down here, but it's-- look at it. I just feel like I'm living in Gotham City.

Brigid Bergin: When you say Gotham City--

Bao-chin Keen: We need a Batman.

Janae Pierre: We could all use a Batman.

Brigid Bergin: Yes. I mean, because what she's saying there, Janae, is she needs a hero. Right?

Janae Pierre: Yes.

Brigid Bergin: Do you feel like this area doesn't get the kind of support other parts of the city get?

Bao-chin Keen: This part gets too much attention, to be honest. It's too quiet on the other side of the island. So much stuff going on underneath their noses they don't even know because they're so paying attention to everything else that's really going on. There's a lot of action going down here, especially with some of the police, and some of them are just aggressive. I feel like some of them abused their badges. You got the good ones, and then you got the ones that just, "Oh, this is why you became a cop. That was your deal because you just wanted to hide behind a badge?"

Brigid Bergin: I mean, this is where Eric Garner died, right?

Bao-chin Keen: Yes. That was sad.

Janae Pierre: Wow. All right. Tell me, why are Black and Latino people more concentrated on the North Shore than the rest of Staten Island?

Brigid Bergin: There were some experts who submitted evidence in this case, and part of what they found is there's a history of racial segregation and really redlining of neighborhoods in Staten Island. That is part of the reason why so many Black and Latino residents are concentrated in the North Shore and the Staten Island Expressway. That's another part of it. It serves as this geographic dividing line that just slices the North Shore off from the rest of Staten Island.

People think of the rest of Staten Island in kind of two different ways. There's the Mid Island and then the South Shore. In both cases, the population tends to be much whiter, leans more Republican. Staten Island is the only borough in all five boroughs, Janae, that voted for Trump all three times he was on the ballot. In each of those cases, Trump won everywhere in Staten Island except the North Shore.

Janae Pierre: Yes, there's a huge difference between those areas.

Brigid Bergin: Yes, exactly.

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Janae Pierre: You mentioned you talked to people who were new to Staten Island. Why did they move there?

Brigid Bergin: Well, Janae, I mean, we have talked about the affordability crisis in the city many, many times. It is real for people who are trying to find a place to live, who are trying to buy their first place.

Christina Gonzalez: It's mostly younger families, people who, like us, were looking to buy a place but found Manhattan and Brooklyn completely unaffordable.

Brigid Bergin: I talked to this couple, Janos Martin and Christina Gonzalez. They moved from Manhattan and Brooklyn, respectively, as a couple to live in the North Shore. It was the only part of Staten Island they would consider. They're both really active Democrats, but they're also both people of color, and they wanted to live in a community that had a flourishing community of people of color. That's part of the reason that they ended up on the North Shore of Staten Island.

Christina Gonzalez: Just down the street, I could go to an African grocery store, a Mexican grocery store, a South Asian grocery store, and just get ingredients from all sorts of cuisines.

Brigid Bergin: That is how I think many of us think of what New York City is, but not necessarily what we think of as Staten Island. Part of the issue, I think, in this particular lawsuit is related to the votes of Black and Latino and Asian voters being diluted, the way the district is drawn near the 11th Congressional District.

Janos Martin: It's interesting, Christina brought up the immigrant-owned businesses where people do their shopping around here, because we moved here not long before the migrant crisis debates around that started. The tenor of that on Staten Island was incredibly racist, hostile. I think, at the time, there were only a few dozen African men who were sort of waylaid here at a former school, and they had these massive protest campouts where they would just say these terrible things. I think more Mid Island.

It was really striking to us, like, how could people be so hostile to immigrants? The North Shore is so immigrant-heavy that it seemed so inconsistent with the character reconciling these two different parts of the island. In that way, I feel like the North Shore is culturally more connected to literally any other part of New York City, whether the bodegas and the random restaurants and dive bars and buses rolling in to pick people up. It feels like the rest of New York City when you're in parts of this, in these neighborhoods.

Brigid Bergin: Which is why you chose to live here, as opposed to why you're not living.

They're a young couple, they're surrounded by young families. The North Shore was a way for them to kind of get a foothold in a community that felt like the rest of the city more than the rest of Staten Island.

Janae Pierre: Were they aware of their voting power?

Brigid Bergin: Well, part of the reason they felt comfortable is because they wanted to be in a place where they felt like they had like-minded neighbors. This is a community that Zohran Mamdani won with 60% of the vote. The rest of Staten Island went for Andrew Cuomo. It's also a community that has other Democrats. There's a Democratic City Councilmember, there's a Democratic assemblymember.

Both Martin and Gonzalez, they care about being active within their community. They even talked about some of what's been happening in the community related to some of President Trump's immigration raids and some of the pushback and protests that they are seeing in the Mid Island and South Shore and how different they're seeing their own community react, how there's a neighborhood WhatsApp where they're trying to alert if there's any sense that there are ICE at the Staten Island Ferry so that they can help out their neighbors.

Christina Gonzalez: We got word that ICE was at the St. George terminal, and we just texted that chat just to see if someone could go and have ICE, at least on the drivers, like the men that pick up people arriving home from the terminal. We can do that here. I don't imagine that they're doing that in other parts of the island. While there are people who believe that ICE is doing atrocious things in other parts of the island, they're not as numerous as they are here.

Janae Pierre: Brigid, you mentioned that the district is currently represented by Nicole Malliotakis. How has she and her party responded to all of this?

Brigid Bergin: Malliotakis and her party have appealed, and as we mentioned, they've gone all the way up to the US Supreme Court. I think it's also important to remember how people within the district talk about how they feel about their representation.

I took a trip to the First Central Baptist Church, which is in Stapleton, and spoke with a pastor there, Reverend Doctor Demetrius Carolina. It's interesting, he says he likes Malliotakis personally. He said she's visited the church, but he still feels like, within his community, which is a predominantly Black community, that they just aren't getting the representation that they deserve.

Demetrius Carolina: Congresswoman Nicole Malliotakis is great. I love her as an individual. I do not always agree with the policies of her politics. I think that it would be wise to have a congressperson who understands who lives, who breathes, what residents of the North Shore deal with on a daily basis.

I think that if we are one man, one vote, then our vote should count like anyone else's vote in the borough of Staten Island. If you look in the definition in the dictionary for underserved communities, the North Shore of Staten Island would come up, because for years, this area in Staten Island has gone underserved and underdeveloped. I think that it is important that we have representation that reflects the community and so that we can have meaningful and lasting change.

Janae Pierre: What happens now?

Brigid Bergin: Well, now we're going to wait and watch a little bit. The ruling that we talked about is currently under appeal. If it were to stand, then potentially this independent commission in New York would redraw the district lines. What's more likely is that it's going to take one of these other potential routes through the courts. One option would be that this intermediate court could issue a ruling which would likely get appealed to the state's highest court by either of the parties that felt like they were on the losing side.

It could also get sent back down to the lower court with an instruction that there needs to be more fact-finding. One of the things that the judge did not do was say how the district should be redrawn. The judge just ordered the district to be redrawn, or the US Supreme Court could weigh in. Experts tell me that it's not clear that there's really a federal question at the moment. That seems potentially unlikely.

Really, no matter what happens, there's a real key date that everyone is watching, which is February 24th. That's when candidates who are running in their party's June congressional primary need to start gathering signatures from voters in their district to get on the ballot for the June primary. If the 11th Congressional District lines were to change, that could affect districts that are next to it. It's more than just the parties in this case that are going to be watching to see what happens next. This is something that has a lot of eyes, and people are waiting for the final decision.

Janae Pierre: All right, Brigid, I have to be honest. First of all, are you familiar with Kendrick Lamar?

Brigid Bergin: I mean, I, of course, watched the halftime show of the Super Bowl last year.

Janae Pierre: Oh, that was definitely a good one to watch. Kendrick Lamar and Drake had a big rap beef about two years ago, and Kendrick had a song called Not Like Us. Considering everything that you just broke down about the North Shore neighborhood and how it's unlike the rest of Staten Island, I can't help but think about it.

Brigid Bergin: I mean, I have to be honest that that song was in my head when we wrote the headline for this story.

Janae Pierre: [laughs] I knew it. I knew it. That's WNYC's Brigid Bergin. Thanks a lot, Brigid.

Brigid Bergin: Thanks, Janae.

Janae Pierre: Thank you for listening to NYC NOW from WNYC. I'm Janae Pierre. See you next time.

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