Big changes loom for Hudson Valley congressional district lines in dueling proposals

Four Democrats representing the Hudson Valley in Congress would run for re-election in greatly reconfigured districts next year under a pair of conflicting proposals released Wednesday for redrawing New York's district lines.

Democratic and Republican appointees on a state redistricting commission each drafted their own maps to drop New York's congressional seats to 26 from 27 and adjust for population changes since 2010. Each side proposed big changes in the Hudson Valley, though in very different ways.

The Democratic plan surprisingly drew two Democratic freshmen – Reps. Mondaire Jones of White Plains and Jamaal Bowman of Yonkers – into the same district, which would include parts of Westchester County and the Bronx. The district to the north represented by Democratic Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney would then take in all of Putnam and Rockland counties, much of Westchester and an eastern strip of Orange County.

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Republicans, meanwhile, split apart Maloney's 18th District. Orange County, which now makes up half of its voting population, would be detached from the counties across the Hudson River and joined with Rockland and Sullivan counties.

In that GOP version, Maloney's home would then be in a different district to the east and north that takes in all of Putnam and parts of Westchester, Dutchess and Ulster, straddling the Hudson.

Rep. Antonio Delgado, the Rhinebeck Democrat whose 11-county 19th District includes all of Ulster and Sullivan counties, also would see big changes in his territory when he seeks a third term in 2022, particularly under the Republican version.

The new battle lines for next year's congressional races are unlikely to be resolved soon. The 10-member redistricting panel plans to hold a series of public hearings on its dueling maps through Nov. 23. Whether it can then reconcile its sharply different proposals – and what happens if it hits an impasse – remains to be seen.

That prolongs the uncertainty for any would-be Republican challengers, who must collect petition signatures in March to get on the ballot. Of the three Hudson Valley Democrats, only Maloney so far has an announced opponent: Colin Schmitt, a two-term assemblyman from New Windsor.

But which Democrat Schmitt would face is even up in the air under the dual maps, neither of which matches him with Maloney. The Republican map would put him in a district with no incumbent. And the Democratic map would put Schmitt's New Windsor home in the same district as Delgado's in Dutchess County.

Orange County Democratic Chairman Brett Broge said Thursday he saw little danger of Democrats being drawn into the same district because the lines are certain to be revised. He argued that the panel's decision to release both Republican and Democratic maps was itself "an acknowledgment that these first drafts are going nowhere."

"Neither one will be the lines at the end of the day," Broge said.

He predicted the final maps would consider the incumbents' home addresses to avoid pairing them in the same districts. Though the Constitution doesn't require House members to live in the districts they represent, candidates almost always do so as a practical matter, hunting for homes in a district if necessary in order to run there.

David Imamura, the chairman of the redistricting commission and one of its Democratic appointees, told the Times Herald-Record on Thursday that the Democrats didn't factor in the homes of any current House members when they drafted their initial proposal.

A previous version of this story used an incorrect hometown for Rep. Mondaire Jones, who now lives in White Plains, and misstated how the proposed maps could affect him and Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney in next year's elections.