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The Naked Ambition of Sean Patrick Maloney
What NY’s Democratic Redistricting SNAFU Has Revealed For All To See
According to the New York Times, just two weeks ago, Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-NY) told his fellow House Democrats in a private meeting that if the new congressional maps that the New York state legislature had just approved under redistricting were thrown out by the state’s highest court, it would be an “extinction-level event” for the party.
Reading this made me spit out my coffee. First, because of the self-absorption the quote displays. We as a world are facing a slow-motion extinction-level event due to climate change; what individual Democratic politicians are facing now that the courts have indeed ruled that the legislature’s maps were an impermissible political gerrymander is uncertainty about their personal political careers. The thing we casually refer to as the “Democratic party” will continue to exist once the dust is settled and voters and politicians alike get used to the new districts. A few careers may take an unexpected turn. This is not an extinction-level event.
The second reason for my spit-take was Maloney’s own role in this mess. It’s an open secret in political circles in New York that he, as chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which controls tens of…
