Jeffries says NY redistricting process was ‘hijacked’ by appeals court

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) on Sunday said New York’s redistricting process was “hijacked” by an appeals court after the new lines drawn for the state lumped a number of incumbents into the same district, forcing member vs. member primaries.

“The process unfortunately was hijacked by the Court of Appeals. A bad process has now led to a bad result,” Jeffries told moderator Margaret Brennan on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

Chaos broke out in New York this week after a court-appointed special master released a new congressional map for the Empire State, which pitted lawmakers against one another. The special master was given authority of the maps after the appeals court said Democrats breached the state Constitution when they drew new congressional lines.

With the new maps, which were approved on Friday, Reps. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) and Jerold Nadler (D-N.Y.) are set to face off against one another in the 12th Congressional District.

Jeffries, the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, on Sunday said “the court of appeals was wrong in the decision that they made both on the substance and in terms of turning over redistricting to an out of town, unelected special master and a judicial overseer in Steuben County, who was a Republican.”

Jeffries on Tuesday detailed his concerns with the map.

“In Brooklyn and Queens, you’ve got four districts with significant pluralities of either African Americans or Latinos. … In this proposed map, the Black or Latino population was degraded in all four districts. Are you kidding me? That doesn’t happen by accident,” he said.