N.J. Legislative Redistricting Map Approved By Commission

Democrats in the Garden State are claiming victory after their proposed legislative map was approved last week, with a tie-breaking vote cast by the state redistricting commission’s independent member, Rutgers University Professor Alan Rosenthal. The redistricting map had to be approved by today, which is the deadline for candidates to file for this November’s state legislative elections
 
In a press conference last Monday after the final commission vote, Republican Governor Chris Christie said that the map is “only slightly better” than the previous legislative map, which was also drawn by Democrats. Some are calling the triumph of the new Democratic map a political defeat for the governor, who injected himself into the process in an unprecedented way, spending three days vigorously lobbying for the commission to choose a Republican plan.
 
“I think the governor takes a bit of a hit, because he inserted himself so publicly in the process,” says Ben Dworkin, director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University.
 
The plan takes aim at several legislators and districts—notably, Somerset County in North-Central New Jersey, which has been broken up into six distinct assembly districts. As a result, two-term 16th district Republican Assemblywoman Denise Coyle has been pushed into the 21st district. She would have to take on entrenched members Nancy F. Munoz and Jon M. Bramnick in a contentious primary in order to retain her seat. 16th district Republican Sen. Kip Bateman also faces an uncertain political future.
 
Several Northern New Jersey districts were changed to reflect the growing dominance of Hispanics in those areas. Democratic state Sen. John Girgenti’s hometown of Hawthorne was separated from his district, creating a district more amenable to Hispanic Assemblywoman Nellie Pou, should she choose to run. Sen. Richard Cody, who served as acting governor after the resignation of Gov. Jim McGreevey, faces re-election in an Essex county district that now includes many Republican-heavy portions of Morris County. He is, however, expected to retain his seat albeit with a smaller margin of victory.
 
The district of Sen. Brian Stack, a powerful Democrat and mayor of Union City who has become an ally of Gov. Christie in the Senate, has been changed dramatically. Stack will lose heavily Hispanic West New York in exchange for large portions of Jersey City, where his base of support is smaller. The Republican plan, by contrast, would have left his district largely intact.
 
“New Jersey will have a Democratic majority in the legislature for the next ten years,” says Patrick Murray, director of polling for the Polling Institute at Monmouth University. “When the nominations are filed, I will be able to tell you with certainty the winners of 38 of the 40 Senate seats in the November elections. That is how safely this map is drawn for incumbents.”
 
Republicans have called the legislative districts in New Jersey unfair. Although their party reclaimed the governor’s mansion in 2009 and won a majority of votes for congressional seats in 2010,  Republicans have been  unable to capture the General Assembly (forty-seven Democrats to thirty-three Republicans) or the Senate (twenty-four Democrats to sixteen Republicans).
 
Dworkin, who argues that the legislative map should not be altered in response to wins in two electoral cycles, believes that the commission made the correct decision. “Christie is the only Republican to win statewide in the last ten years,” he says. “There are 700,000 more registered Democrats than Republicans in New Jersey.”
 
The map could still be challenged in court by a number of parties. The state’s Republican Party chairman, Assemblyman Jay Webber, has not ruled out a legal challenge and told NJ Spotlight, an online news service, that his party would review its options and “decide pretty quickly” if it would challenge the Democratic plan.
 
Murray says that the only chance for the map to be overturned would be to base a challenge on a map drawn by the Bayshore Tea Party, which leaves county boundaries largely intact. “It is a sound map in its own way,” says Murray. “That may be the only shot there is to overturn this map in court.” However, he believes that the principles on which the map chosen by the commission was laid out are consistent with the principles applied to every New Jersey legislative map in the last four decades and finds it hard to envision a scenario in which the court would overturn the map on state or federal constitutional grounds.
 Noah Rothman is the online editor at C&E. E-mail him at nrothman@campaignsandelections.com