Governor Kathy Hochul stood at a podium this week denouncing Texas Republicans for redistricting tactics she called “undemocratic,” “un-American,” and a “legal insurrection.” Yet in her own backyard, the Democratic Party did exactly what she’s now condemning — and they did it first, to their own, and notably, to a Black man.
Let’s not rewrite history. New York Democrats have redrawn District 16 twice in the past four years, both times with the same goal: shaping the outcome of elections. Congressman Jamaal Bowman, the district’s first Black representative, was squeezed from both ends. In 2022, Democratic legislators ignored the state’s Independent Redistricting Commission and attempted to ram through gerrymandered maps — until the courts struck them down. When new maps were drawn under court supervision, they removed heavily Black and working-class areas from Bowman’s base.
Then, in 2024, Democrats came back and redrew the lines again — this time restoring Co-Op City in a weak attempt to counter the backlash and protect Bowman’s re-election chances. But the damage had been done. Bowman was ultimately drowned by over $20 million in outside spending from corporate and pro-Israel groups, while Hochul and other state leaders stood by, silent.
Now she wants to stand on principle?
This is the problem with performative outrage. Governor Hochul wants to be the face of democratic fairness when it’s politically convenient — but her party engaged in the same rigging, in the same decade, and under her watch. Worse, they did it not just to any incumbent — but to a Black man with the audacity to challenge power structures inside his own party. That’s not just hypocritical. That’s political malpractice.
You can’t claim to be defending democracy while redrawing maps in the backroom and letting PAC money decide who stays in power. You can’t condemn Republicans for mid-decade map manipulation while rewriting your own district lines for partisan gain. And you certainly can’t ignore the racial optics of helping push out the only Black congressman the district has ever had.
Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett has been quick to label the Texas redistricting effort as racist and undemocratic — and yet, her voice was notably absent when similar political maneuvers were carried out against Congressman Jamaal Bowman in New York. When Democrats redrew District 16 not once, but twice, ultimately helping to remove the district’s first Black congressman under a flood of PAC money and party silence, Crockett had nothing to say. Her selective outrage raises serious questions: Is the issue truly about race and fairness, or only when it’s politically convenient? Ignoring what happened to Bowman while now decrying Texas shows a troubling double standard — and it doesn’t go unnoticed by Black voters who are tired of being used as political pawns
Jamaal Bowman may not have been everyone’s favorite. But what he represented — a strong, unapologetic Black voice from the Bronx and Westchester — was historic. And for the Democratic establishment to quietly participate in dismantling that, only to now cry foul about Texas, is the height of political hypocrisy.
This is exactly why so many Black men are leaving the Democratic Party — the hypocrisy. Do they really think Black people are that stupid? That we wouldn’t notice what they did to Bowman? To now point fingers at Trump or any Republican is the very definition of hypocrisy — especially after you did it to one of your own.
