{"id":258762,"date":"2026-06-08T02:41:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T02:41:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/258762\/"},"modified":"2026-06-08T02:41:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T02:41:08","slug":"david-paterson-rips-hochul-dems-for-pushing-partisan-redistricting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/258762\/","title":{"rendered":"David Paterson rips Hochul, Dems for pushing partisan redistricting"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ex-Gov. David Paterson rapped Gov. Kathy Hochul and fellow Democrats for a planned power grab that will allow them to carve up congressional maps<\/a> \u2014 and try to reduce the number of Republican-held seats.<\/p>\n

Democrat Paterson claimed Hochul championed the partisan move to amend the state constitution because she is \u201ccompletely outnumbered\u201d by Democrats in the legislature clamoring for the change.<\/p>\n

Governor Kathy Hochul and Mayor Zohran Mamdani provide an update on transportation and public safety preparations ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Matt Roberts\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re going to draw their own maps [for partisan gain],\u201d Paterson, a former state chairman of the state Democratic Party, said Sunday.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s [Hochul] almost taking a lead on it just to maintain that relationship [with the legislature\u2019]. It\u2019s a real problem,\u201d Paterson said on <\/a>77 WABC\u2019s the \u201cCats Roundtable\u201d program.<\/p>\n

Democrats now control 19 of New York\u2019s 26 congressional seats.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s part of a tit-for-tat with Republican-led states including Texas, Florida, Louisiana, Alabama and Tennessee that moved up congressional redistricting \u2014 which traditionally takes place after the census every 10 years \u2014 to try to win more GOP seats in the 2026 Midterm elections.<\/p>\n

New York joins like-minded Democrats in California and Virginia, where politicians pushed for their own partisan gerrymandering for their state\u2019s congressional maps in a counter offensive.<\/p>\n

Former New York Gov. David Paterson rapped state Dems for their efforts to redraw congressional maps. James Keivom<\/p>\n

The proposed New York amendment, if approved, would remove the state\u2019s ban on gerrymandering and allow the map to be changed mid-decade, opening the door for new House districts for the 2028 presidential elections.<\/p>\n

The amendment would also:<\/p>\n

Keep New York\u2019s bipartisan redistricting commission in place, but give a simple majority of both houses \u2014 the state Senate and Assembly \u2014 the ability to override a proposed map from the panel. A two-thirds majority is currently required, which allows Republicans to block such a move.<\/p>\n

Remove language dictating that districts \u201cshall not be drawn to discourage competition,\u201d effectively allowing political gerrymandering<\/p>\n

Democrats, who control both houses of the state legislature and hold a more than 2-to-1 voter enrollment advantage over Republicans, would need New Yorkers to approve the measure on their November 2027 election ballots.<\/p>\n

Democratic lawmakers in the Assembly and State passed a bill to launch the constitutional amendment last week before ending the 2026 legislative session, and must do so again next year before presenting it as a referendum to voters.<\/p>\n

House Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) speaks during a news conference. REUTERS<\/p>\n

Partisan redistricting, known as gerrymandering, is \u201cdividing our country almost the way it was before the Civil War,\u201d Paterson said.<\/p>\n

He said it\u2019s a pox on both Republicans and Democrats.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s interfering with one of the most fabled ways that we have moved ahead of other countries by really having a democratic process, where people vote their conscience and not their party,\u201d he told host John Catsimatidis.<\/p>\n

He lamented that the partisan warfare in red and blue states is damaging the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re moving toward a society that is going to be Balkanized. We\u2019re not going to really understand each other. We\u2019re not going to work with each other,\u201d Paterson told host John Catsimatidis.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to make presumptions about people or ideas that are really going to injure the process of a country that for so many years has led the world in terms of invention, in terms of opportunity, in terms of a way to run a government without people being abused by it,\u201d he added. \u201cIf we\u2019re unlucky and this continues for too much longer, we\u2019re going to be in a dire, dire situation.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ex-Gov. David Paterson rapped Gov. Kathy Hochul and fellow Democrats for a planned power grab that will allow…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":258763,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[13279,12885,426,11538,5467,57,46937,9,11,10,49,17566,51,50,18571,87,7316,58],"class_list":["post-258762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-david-paterson","tag-gerrymandering","tag-kathy-hochul","tag-legislature","tag-maps","tag-metro","tag-midterm-elections-2026","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-assembly","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news","tag-new-york-state-senate","tag-politics","tag-us-house-of-representatives","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258762\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/258763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}