Republicans urge Supreme Court to restore New York congressional map

By Amy Howe

on Feb 14,

A Republican member of Congress, a group of voters, and New York election officials asked the Supreme Court to allow the state to proceed with the 2026 elections using its existing congressional map. This followed an order by a state court barring New York from using the map, and requiring the state to redraw the map because, according to the state court, it diluted the votes of Blacks and Latinos in the only congressional district in New York City represented by a Republican, Rep. Nicole Malliotakis. Malliotakis told the justices that the state court’s decision would require the state “to adopt an unconstitutional racial gerrymander” – that is, to sort voters based on race. Peter Kosinski, a Republican co-chair of the state’s board of elections, echoed Malliotakis’ concerns, telling the court that if it does not put the lower court’s ruling on hold “by February 23, 2026, New York’s congressional elections will be thrown into chaos and uncertainty.”

The district at the center of the dispute is New York’s 11th Congressional District, which is based on Staten Island but also extends into parts of southern Brooklyn. In October 2025, a group of voters went to state court, where they argued that the district’s boundaries violated the state’s constitution by diluting the votes of Black and Latino voters, who now make up approximately 30% of the population of Staten Island, while the population of white voters has dropped to 56%. Specifically, they contended, the district’s boundaries did not give its black and Latino residents an equal opportunity to elect a representative of their choice.

On Jan. 21, 2026, Justice Jeffrey Pearlman of the New York State Supreme Court – a trial court – agreed that the current map diluted minority votes in violation of the New York constitution, and he prohibited the state from using the map in upcoming elections. He also instructed the state’s independent redistricting commission to complete a new map by Feb. 6.

Malliotakis, who had joined the lawsuit to defend the current map, and Kosinski, asked two different state appeals courts to pause Pearlman’s ruling. The New York Court of Appeals, that state’s highest court, ruled that it lacked the ability to hear the case; the intermediate appellate court has not yet acted on their request. Under state law, the appeal also automatically put the portion of Pearlman’s order directing the creation of a new map by the redistricting commission on hold.

In filings distributed to reporters on Friday, Malliotakis and Kosinski then came to the Supreme Court, asking the justices to intervene. Malliotakis argued that Pearlman’s “decision clearly violates this Court’s Equal Protection Clause case law by prohibiting New York from running any congressional elections until it racially gerrymanders CD11 by ‘adding [enough] Black and Latino voters from elsewhere,’ until the Black and Latino voters in CD11 control contested primaries and win most general elections.”

Kosinski contended that in reaching his decision, Pearlman had “adopted an entirely new standard for vote dilution claims” that had been advanced in a “friend of the court” brief rather than by the litigants. “As a matter of due process,” he wrote, “the trial court cannot reject the only standard litigated by the parties” – which derived from the New York Voting Rights Act – “and adopt something wholly new”: a “novel three-prong standard” that would require map makers to add minority voters from elsewhere so that (1) minority voters can select their preferred candidates in the primary election; (2) those candidates will usually win the general election; and (3) the newly redrawn district increases the influence of minority voters so that they play a decisive role in the selection of candidates. Moreover, he added, “[a]t this point it is impossible for the IRC to propose a new map, and for the Legislature to adopt any such map, in time for petitioning to start on February 24, 2026.”

https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/02/republicans-urge-supreme-court-to-restore-new-york-congressional-map/

POLITICSFebruary 17, 2026

Albany Law Student Sues School Over Racial and Political Discrimination

Rowland Rupp, a student at Albany Law School of Union University, has created his own clinical opportunity by suing the school for racial and political discrimination. At issue is the allegedly biased and hostile lectures of Professor Anthony Farley. Rupp is suing under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and other civil rights laws.

In his lawsuit, Rupp alleges that Farley “intentionally deactivated the classroom’s audio recording system and abandoned course instruction, launching instead into a hostile political and racial monologue directed at white conservative students.” That included claims that the Founding Fathers were “worse than Hitler” and that conservatives “hate everyone – blacks, women, gays” and that they aim to “conserve slavery.”

Rupp alleges that Farley also singled him out over his personal appearance as an example of “what conservatives look like,” referring to them as “Daniel Boone.” The complaint also said that Farley harassed him on Facebook for his “Daniel Boone” clothing, a “Remember the Alamo” hat, and generally having an “incel/MAGA look.”

Rupp said that he told Farley after the class that, after enduring “approximately thirty minutes of this abuse,” he would leave the class and file a complaint with the law school.

After filing the complaint, Rupp alleges that the law school ignored it without calling witnesses or seeking evidence. Then, Farley himself reportedly filed a

“disciplinary complaint,” claiming that he was assaulted by Rupp and subjected to a “crazy and racist scene.” Rupp says that he merely “briefly placed his hand on Professor Farley’s shoulder in a non-threatening manner” in stating his intent to leave his class and file a complaint.

The complaint alleges that Farley has previously been the subject of such complaints.

These are starkly different accounts, and we will have to wait for a response from Professor Farley.

Regrettably, I routinely hear from law students about professors delivering anti-Republican or anti-conservative diatribes in classes. There is a sense of impunity at law schools, where professors enjoy ideological echo chambers that range from the left to the far left. With only 9 percent of law professors identifying as conservative, most faculties have practically no Republicans or conservatives left.

Despite begrudging acknowledgments of the lack of ideological diversity in higher education, there is no evidence of any real commitment from law schools or other departments to change the status quo.

The few remaining conservatives and libertarians know that they would not survive any political commentary in a class.

It is common to hear inflammatory language from professors advocating “detonating white people,”denouncing police, calling for Republicans to suffer, strangling police officers, celebrating the death of conservatives, calling for the killing of Trump supporters, supporting the murder of conservative protesters and other outrageous statements. One professor who declared that there is “nothing wrong” with such acts of violence as killing conservatives was actually promoted.

We have chronicled actual physical attacks by faculty members who later were lionized by fellow professors and students.

Conversely, there is no margin for error for conservative or libertarian faculty. Postings on social media outside of school are generally protected from liability. However, that has not stopped schools from targeting conservatives who say inappropriate or controversial things on social media. Conservative North Carolina professor Dr. Mike Adams faced calls for termination for years with investigations and cancel campaigns. He repeatedly had to appear in court to defend his right to continue teaching. He was targeted again after an inflammatory tweet. He was done. Under pressure from the university, he agreed to resign in exchange for a settlement. Four years ago this month, Adams went home just days before his final day as a professor. He then committed suicide.

This type of claim is notoriously difficult to establish. The question is whether it can survive threshold challenges to allow for discovery, including past complaints against Farley. The university recognizes that it has an advantage in such litigation, given the robust protections for academic freedom.

https://jonathanturley.org/2026/02/17/albany-law-student-sues-school-over-racial-and-political-discrimination/

Nick Sortor

@nicksortor

🚨 BREAKING: The US Capitol Police say a man wearing a tactical vest jumped out of his vehicle and began RUNNING TOWARDS the Capitol Building while wielding a shotgun

He was then challenged by officers, who ordered him to the ground, and he was taken into custody.

Can’t WAIT to hear more about this guy…

https://x.com/nicksortor/status/2023851204061671929?s=20

Feb 17, 2026

@OffThePress1

, FOX5 DC

Stray Dog Chooses His Family By Jumping Into Their Car | The Dodo

3:15

https://youtu.be/Ijv_8xf7qCA

Eric Kober

Boston’s Mayor Makes the Wrong Call on Rent Control

Michelle Wu is backing a bad housing policy that refuses to die.

/ Eye on the News / Economy, Finance, and Budgets, Politics and Law

Feb 13 2026

/ Share

Earlier this week, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu endorsed a restrictive version of rent control that supporters are pushing for a November statewide ballot referendum in Massachusetts. “There is so much urgency and pressure from housing costs on our residents,” she said. “Something’s got to give.”

“Something” must indeed be done about the housing crisis in Boston and its metro area. But rent control is a bad solution, particularly as it’s being proposed. While apparently popular among voters, it is likely to worsen the housing shortage, not ameliorate it. Wu and allies should push to strengthen inadequate zoning-reform efforts instead.

Massachusetts’s legislature prohibited rent control statewide in 1994. This year’s ballot proposal would undo that law, instead capping annual rent increases statewide at the lesser of 5 percent or the rate of price inflation. Owner-occupied small homes with up to four units would be exempt, as would new housing for the first decade of its existence.

Wu had earlier supported a less draconian proposal that failed in the legislature in 2023. That plan would have capped rent increases at inflation plus 6 percent, reaching a maximum of 10 percent. She has also advocated for a local option rather than statewide regulation. In an interview earlier this week, Wu expressed hope that the legislature would step in and pass a compromise measure, forestalling the statewide referendum.

The Boston area certainly has a housing affordability problem. The 2025 Greater Boston Housing Report Card from the Boston Foundation and others finds that the region is the fifth most-expensive rental market, trailing only New York, San Jose, San Francisco, and San Diego. The rental vacancy rate is extremely low, at just under 3 percent in 2024. Half of all renter households were “cost-burdened” in 2024, meaning that they paid more than 30 percent of income for housing; 26 percent were “severely cost-burdened,” paying more than 50 percent.

As the region’s population continues to grow, these conditions can be alleviated only by increasing the housing supply. Unfortunately, the “report card” finds that construction growth has slowed instead. New housing permits in the region averaged about 13,000 units annually in the 2010s, but they have fallen off in the current decade.

In Boston proper, Wu’s administration set a goal of 13,000 new housing units for the 2022–25 period. With a base of roughly 302,000 units in 2020, that represents an increase of a bit more than 1 percent a year—a reasonable goal for a moderately growing city,but the city’s own tracker indicates that it has undershot even this modest target, with only 11,804 units permitted over those four years…

https://www.city-journal.org/article/boston-mayor-michelle-wu-rent-control-housing