After the revelations of the past few days, this news comes as no surprise, but it’s still welcome nonetheless:
By a vote of 6-5, the commission to redraw the state’s 40 state legislative districts has passed a new map drawn by Democrats.
Tiebreaker Alan Rosenthal sided with the Democrats after spending a month on the commission, and the last week holed up at the Heldrich Hotel in New Brunswick.
“I wanted it to be a tough decision. It was. It took five hours of deliberations before I decided on the Democratic map,” said Rosenthal, a professor of public policy at Rutgers University.
Rosenthal said it was the “more conservative, less disruptive map”
“It is a map, I believe, that gives the minority party a chanee at winning control fot he Legislature, even in what is essentially a Democratic state,” he said. “I’ve tried to be diligent, I’ve tried to be honest, and I’ve tried to be fair in my participation.”
The map (click image for full size):
A PDF version of the map can be found here.
UPDATE: This site from the NJ Democratic Party has town & demographic breakdowns for the Dem map.
UPDATE 2: I’ve crunched the Obama/McCain percentages for each of these districts, based on the town breakdowns at the link above. Important note: The numbers for districts 28, 29, 31 & 33 are incomplete. Newark is split between the first two, and Jersey City is split between the second two, but we don’t know the exact splits. Also, two portions of district 9 and one portion of district 13 is described as “county subdivisions not defined” in the spreadsheet – not clear what that means. Full table is below the fold. I’m now convinced I made an error somewhere along the way and that these numbers are not accurate. I’m going to take the table down until I can figure out what happened.
to help them draw their packing map. Another reason I’m glad they lost.
http://www.bluejersey.com/diar…
And Chistie’s 11th hour intervention was undoubtedly a sign that they knew they were going down in flames and needed the big guns.
Fairfield Twp 1
Fairfield Twp 26
Franklin Twp 3
Franklin Twp 17
Franklin Twp 23
Franklin Twp 23
Greenwich Twp 1
Greenwich Twp 3
Greenwich Twp 23
Hamilton Twp 2
Hamilton Twp 14
Hopewell Twp 1
Hopewell Twp 15
Jersey City in District 31 31
Jersey City in District 33 33
Lawrence Twp 1
Lawrence Twp 15
Mansfield Twp 8
Mansfield Twp 23
Monroe Twp 4
Monroe Twp 14
Newark City in District 28 28
Newark City in District 29 29
Ocean Twp 9
Ocean Twp 11
Springfield Twp 8
Springfield Twp 21
Union Twp 20
Union Twp 23
Washington Twp 4
Washington Twp 9
Washington Twp 23
Washington Twp 25
Washington Twp 39
presumably knows the partisan breakdown. But so far as I can tell, they haven’t released it.
That’s a shame.
I sort of guessed you might be, given your familiarity with redistricting law. But if you aren’t, I’m here to tell you that it’s not too late to choose something else! 🙂
Anyhow, the table is now below the fold in this post.
Always it is good to see some success. Now the democrats must work hard for draw a good map for the congressional districts.
Fortunately the map is less agressive toward some Democrats that are not close to the stablisment. I hope to see the same for the US House map. The Democrats can not go with a map losing a Democratic seat (Pallone or other). The current map is too much republican and the tiebreaker is not hostile.
Rosenthal is probably a bit optimistic about the GOP’s chances of taking control, but it is by no means a Dem-tilted map for NJ . . .
Obama numbers are very misleading. In NJ legislative elections are held in off years.
2009 Christie – Corzine % would be more indicative, but would be tilted towards the GOP.
To 11 McCain districts. Granted, these are skewed, but I count an outright majority of Obama 57% districts. Those would be a tough nut to crack for the Republicans, even in a good year.
as a classic game theory situation. There rules are what they are. To an extent the rules means that either side gets an outrageous advantage. If the GOP drew the map, by themselves, 25-15 would be likely. Likewise the D’s could probably do 30-10 if they had complete control.
The rules encouraged the choice of Professor R as the 11th vote and its possible that the NJ surpreme court would have choose him as a fallback so there you have it.
Once the map making began and Professor R set the limts it was clear that a fair map to him was one that mirrored NJ’s political landscape. Its hard to argue that with only one statewide win since 2002 that the GOP should have a majority in the state legislative body.
The GOP did argue for more competitive seats but that mostly fell on deaf ears as even that had a risk as that might be 21R-19D but it could also mean 26D-14R. So they did the pack minorities into seats and try for 21R-19D plan. It was clear that idea would not fly but the D’s were also forced to accomdate Professor’s R desire for more minority chances.
In the end the GOP could have accomdated Professor R and drew a map alot like the democratic map but why bother? The D’s had mostly accomdated Professor R with a 21-19 or 22-18 map so mirror that. Roll the dice for a longshot.
The congressional map will be interesting.