Bed-Stuy Reunified In Congressional Redistricting But Concerns Remain

BED-STUY, BROOKLYN — Mapmakers backtracked on a plan to split Bed-Stuy's congressional district in two, but concerns remain about the impact new borders will have on the community.

Bed-Stuy's District 8 was officially reunited last Friday after U.S. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries and other local lawmakers condemned the initial redistricting plan — which divided the historically Black voting bloc in two — as one that "would make Jim Crow blush."

Jonathan Cervas, the court-appointed special master who drew the redistricting maps, claimed the controversial divide was motivated solely by legal limitations.

"I inadvertently split the community of Bedford-Stuyvesant while trying to crate compact, legally compliant districts in Brooklyn," Cervas explained. "Bedford-Stuyvestant is now the core of district 8, as has historically been the case."

Cervas' new map also reunites Crown Heights, which also would have been split between the 8th and 9th Districts.

The redistricting came at the behest of the state's top appeals court, which declared in April that the original Democratic-drawn congressional and state Senate maps were unconstitutional.

Though Bed-Stuy is kept whole, the final maps change the boundaries of the 8th District.

Under the new maps, Jeffries' district ends at Classon Avenue, instead of extended over Fort Greene, Clinton Hill and into Downtown Brooklyn as it did previously.

Those neighborhoods are now included in U.S. Nydia Velazquez's District 7, the map shows.

Jeffries, a Democrat, remains concerned that the new plan represents a "degradation" of Black and Latino populations, pointing to a 2 percent loss of Black voters in his district.

The new maps degrade the voting age population of minorities in other districts as well, including 10 percent drops in Hispanic and Black voters in two Bronx districts, a 4 percent drop in Black voters in Queens' 5th District and a 3 percent drop in Hispanic voters in the 7th District in Northern Brooklyn, Jeffries notes.

The lawmaker also raised concerns about the splitting of Borough Park and the Upper West Side in what was previously the most Jewish district in the country.

The Upper West Side and Upper East Side are combined into District 12 in the new maps and District 10 now covers Lower Manhattan and part of Brooklyn.

"The restoration of the iconic neighborhood of Bedford Stuyvesant into one Congressional District is a small step," he said. "We will not let modest changes to a severely flawed draft map whitewash the violence done to communities of color through New York City."

For his part, Cervas pointed out that using race as a "preponderant motive in redistricting" is unconstitutional.

"Some of the changes that were proposed involved moving pockets of minority populations from one district to another simply to increase minority influence without a clear justification in terms of unifying long-established geographically defined neighborhoods and communities," Cervas said.

The original drafts would have been the first time Bed-Stuy was divided in Congress since a 1968 court ruling that allowed for the win of U.S. Rep. Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman elected to the legislature, leaders pointed out.

Chisholm's historic 1968 victory came after a lawsuit that successfully claimed Bed-Stuy had been made "politically impotent" by gerrymandering that divided it between five congressional districts, according to the court letters and records.