New Map Leaves Politicians Scrambling

The commission re-drawing New Jersey's state assembly districts issued its final map Sunday, leaving incumbents and potential challengers scratching their heads to determine whether it helps or hurts their election chances.

Every 10 years, after the U.S. Census provides new population data, the state must re-draw the boundaries of the assembly districts to keep the population approximately equal. In New Jersey, that is done by a commission of five Democrats and five Republicans. After they proved unable to agree on a map, a judge ordered the addition of an 11th, non-partisan, member, Rutgers public policy Prof. Alan Rosenthal.

After weeks of hearings, debate and discussion, he decided on Saturday to vote in favor of the map proposed by Democrats.

The boundaries of almost every district were changed, generally by adding or subtracting a nearby town.

The biggest change in the map include the merging of two senators of each party in the same district. Democratic Sens. John Girgenti, of Hawthorne, and Robert Gordon, of Fair Lawn, are in the same Bergen County based district and Republican Sens. Robert Singer, of Lakewood, and Sean Kean, of Wall Township, are in the same Ocean and Monmouth based district. Girgenti has indicated to PolitickerNJ that he plans to move to Paterson to seek reelection in a Passaic County based district. Singer and Kean have not indicated their plans.

PolitickerNJ has also reported that Assemblywoman Nellie Pou (D-North Haledon) will be seeking the Senate seat in the Passaic County district Girgenti plans to relocate to.

Princeton Borough and Township has been moved from the Mercer County based  and Democratic leaning 15th district to a Republican leaning district straddling Mercer, Hunterdon, Somerset and Middlesex Counties. Assemblyman Reed Gusciora (D-Princeton) has told PolitickerNJ that he will move into the new 15th, which includes Trenton, to seek reelection.

Sen. Richard Codey (D-Roseland), a former governor, has seen a redrawing of his lines from a safe Democratic seat in Essex County to a competitive district saddling parts of Essex and Morris Counties. Codey’s new district loses parts of Newark and gains Republican Millburn in Essex, along with Harding, Chatham Township, East Hanover, Hanover and Madison in Morris. Codey retains several towns in his existing suburban Essex base including Livingston, West Orange, Maplewood and South Orange.

Millburn had been the only Essex County town for the past 10 years in the Union County dominated 21st district. The old redistricting cost then Assemblyman Joel Weingarten (R-Millburn) his seat and hindered Millburn based Assembly candidates during Republican special election conventions in 2003 and 2009.

Union County Democratic Chairwoman Charlotte DeFilippo achieved her redistricting goal with the move of her hometown of Hillside from the Newark dominated 29th district to the Union County based 20th. The 29th, which is led by Sen. Teresa Ruiz (D-Newark), picks up Belleville under the new map, while the 20th loses Kenilworth to the 21st district to accommodate Hillside. Kenilworth Republicans have long wanted their community moved from the Democratic 20th to the Republican 21st.

In Hudson County, Sen. Brian Stack (D-Union City) picks up more of Jersey City and loses Guttenberg and West New York, a result that had been long expected. Assemblywoman Caridad Rodriguez (D-West New York), a Stack ally, announced plans to run for town commissioner in her hometown instead of reelection in a new district straddling Hudson and Bergen Counties.

Legislative leaders have largely retained safe seats for the next decade.

For incumbents, the new map means they will need to introduce themselves to voters in unfamiliar neighborhoods, while potential challengers calculate whether the new boundaries may make incumbents more or less vulnerable.

Predictably, reaction to the plan was divided along party lines.

Republicans claimed the map puts more people in districts in south Jersey than in the north, an imbalance that may grow if the southern part of the state continues to gain population faster than the northern part.

Republicans could still decide to challenge the plan in court, but as of Sunday, weren't saying if they planned to do so.