WASHINGTON — A divided Supreme Court intervened Monday to halt a New York state court-mandated redistricting of the Staten Island-based seat currently held by Republican Rep. Nicole Malliotakis.

The unsigned order pauses the effort to force the state to draw a new map for the seat on arguments that it violated the state constitution by discriminating against minority voters.

Malliotakis and the other Republicans had asked the court to step in, arguing the state court effectively ordered unconstitutional racial gerrymandering and came too close to the primary election.

A majority of the justices sided with Malliotakis and other Republicans but did not explain their reasoning. The order said the lower court process to draw a new map should not proceed while the state court appeals play out, as well as a possible Supreme Court appeal.

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote separately to support the order, and criticized the state trial court order that “blatantly discriminates on the basis of race.”

Alito said that pausing the trial court order on the new map avoided any last-minute changes to the state’s map ahead of this year’s elections. Alito wrote that allowing the state court process to play out could take too long.

“That would provide a way of achieving what full review would not permit: the use of an unconstitutional district in the November election and the election of a Member of the House of Representatives whose entitlement to the office would be tainted,” Alito wrote.

The state’s candidate petition period started last week, and the order said that disrupting the electoral process now would potentially disrupt the election.

In January, a state judge found that the current map, which joins Staten Island with Brooklyn to form the seat represented by Malliotakis, violated a provision in the state constitution by minimizing the power of minority voters.

The state judge barred the state from using the 2024 map in any elections and ordered the state’s Independent Redistricting Commission to draw a new map.

The emergency appeals from Malliotakis and the other Republicans argued that the underlying ruling, which mandated that mapmakers add Black or Latino voters from “elsewhere,” was inherently suspect and should be considered racial gerrymandering.

The 11th District, which includes Staten Island and parts of Brooklyn, is a solid Republican seat as currently configured. District voters backed Donald Trump by 24 points in 2024, according to calculations by Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales, while Malliotakis won a third term the same year by 28 points.

The Trump administration weighed in as well, asking the justices to side with Republicans.

Last month, as the case was pending before the justices, a state appellate court declined a motion from Republicans to pause the mapmaking process.

The state has argued that state courts will be able to resolve the litigation before the primary in June. In the Supreme Court, Gov. Kathy Hochul cited the state’s prior redistricting process in March 2022 ahead of the 2022 elections.

The court’s three liberal appointees signed onto a dissent from Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Sotomayor criticized the majority for stating in prior cases that federal courts should not intervene in state court fights, only to step into this one.

“Today, the Court takes the astonishing, unexplained step of staying a state trial court’s order before the state high court has had a chance to weigh in,” Sotomayor wrote.

Sotomayor’s dissent noted that the justices have used the principle of preventing judicial interference in elections to allow elections on maps that are later found to be illegal — an argument Alito used to justify the majority coming out the other way.

Sotomayor accused the majority of undermining the country’s federalist structure in the name of not interfering with a general election that is nearly eight months away. She wrote that the majority was asking litigants to seek electoral advantage by trying to have election disputes decided by the justices rather than state courts.

“There is much reason to question whether the majority will exercise its new-found authority wisely, but there is no reason to question this: If you build it, they will come,” Sotomayor said.

Monday’s ruling is the third time the justices have intervened in redistricting lawsuits ahead of the 2026 midterms. In previous cases involving new maps in California and Texas, the justices issued rulings that allowed the states to hold elections under the new maps.

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