Posted on 02/10/2003 8:32:32 PM PST by westfield3
Court rejects Dem redistricting appeal
The state Appellate Division today rejected state Democrats' request that the Legislative Redistricting Commission not be ordered to draw a new map. The Court told the Commission that "Its opinion is its mandate" in upholding the decision that declared unconstitutional the legislative redistricting map.
Republicans challenged the map based on the division of Newark and Jersey City into three districts, as opposed to two. Democrats have already prepared their appeal to the State Supreme Court, which is expected to decide whether to take the politically charged case. (02/10/03)
Unless necessary to meet the foregoing requirements, no county or municipality shall be divided among Assembly districts unless it shall contain more than one-fortieth of the total number of inhabitants of the State, and no county or municipality shall be divided among a number of Assembly districts larger than one plus the whole number obtained by dividing the number of inhabitants in the county or municipality by one-fortieth of the total number of inhabitants of the State.
Only Jersey City and Newark have populations in excess of 1/40th (the number of districts) of the state's population - and neither has 1/20th, therefore it seems obvious that each city should be apportioned into parts of two assembly/senate distrists.
As part of the democrat plan of "unpacking" urban democrat(and minority) votes, and adding them to competitive suburban districts, each of Newark and Jersey City were split into three districts including adjoining communities.
The map adopted after the 2000 census was the democrat map when the 11th member of the redistricting commission, Larry Bartels, a Princeton professor appointed by Supreme Court Chief Justice Deborah Poritz, cast the tiebreaking vote.
The NJ Senate is currently 20-20 and the NJ Assembly is 43-36-1 Democrat, the 1 a result of a democrat defection to the Green Party after a sitting assemblyman was a little too independent for the Bergen County democrat machine.
Some statistical analysis shows that the Dem assembly candidates won about 52.75% of the vote but won 55% of the seats - thanks to the redistricting which maintained their margins in urban areas while providing comfortable registration edges in targeted formerly R districts. Several R incumbents were stripped from their natural political bases or forced into primaries against other republican assembly members. (And that vote percentage was high in that there were no R candidates for five seats)
The democrats only argument put forth thus far is that prior redistricting maps also violated the constitution, but were never challenged or overturned.
Just to spice things up a bit, Poritz is in her 7th year as Chief Justice, so McGreevey has to re-appoint her in July if she is to continue in office. A sitting CJ has never been denied tenure - even when the governor is from the other party. McGreevey has already broken with tradition once, appointing a democrat to a "republican" seat on the NJSC, which had a traditional 3-3-1 balance. (Several of Whitman's choices were D's following this bi-partisan tradition.) Barring an illness, only Justice Coleman's retirement at age 70 in three months will be the only other spot that will open up during this term. (This is a "D" seat. )
Even if the court acts in accordance with the constitution, the final decision will be back in the hands of the Princeton professor.
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