Charles Stile, The Record 3/29/2011 Governor Christie, who thrives on the thrust and parry with the press, dodged reporters Sunday night, his face a mixture of fatigue, contempt and disappointment. He thundered down a side stairway at the Heldrich Hotel in New Brunswick, where he just huddled...
Continue Reading
Matt Katz, Philadelphia Inquirer, 4/2/11 We’ve got a decision in the once-a-decade battle over legislative district lines, and it appears the Democrats have handed the Gov a major defeat. A non-partisan arbiter has reportedly chosen the Democrats’ version of “the map”...
Continue Reading
By a vote of 6-5, the NJ reapportionment commission approved a new Legislative Map.
- You can view a breakdown of the new 2011 Legislative Map by District Statistics here.
- You can view a breakdown of the new 2011 Legislative Map by Town here
- You can see the new map in full below
Matt Friedman, Star Ledger, 4/2/11
NEW BRUNSWICK — Democrats today claimed a key victory that will shape New Jersey politics for the next 10 years by prevailing in a long and hard-fought battle with Republicans to redraw the state’s 40 legislative districts.
The state legislative redistricting commission’s tiebreaker, Alan Rosenthal, informed the Democrats early in the evening that he plans to vote for their proposal when the commission meets at the Statehouse on Sunday at noon.
The stakes could not be higher. The new map will have a large influence over which party controls the state Legislature in this fall’s elections — and for the next decade.
The decision came after the 11-member redistricting team, made up of Rosenthal, five Republicans and five Democrats, spent a week holed up at the Heldrich Hotel in New Brunswick, sometimes working almost around the clock. The Republican effort to sway Rosenthal included three appearances by Gov. Chris Christie, including today, the first time in recent memory a governor had gotten personally involved in a redistricting fight.
Democrats tonight said they were delighted.
“We satisfied every one of Dr. Rosenthal’s criteria that he established, and that was the basis for him choosing our map,” said Democratic State Chairman John Wisniewski, leader of his party’s redistricting team, as visibly excited members of his team stood behind him.
Max Pizarro, PolitickerNJ, 4/2/11
NEW BRUNSWICK – In a penultimate act a day before the final vote, tiebreaking Redistricting Commissioner Prof. Alan Rosenthal chose the Democrats’ legislative map today after a final meeting with both sides.
The decision came as little surprise to insiders who had predicted Rosenthal would side with the Democrats since he issued a memo several weeks ago outlining his parameters for fairness.
Republicans had argued that the map adopted in 2001 was unconstitutional because it gave Democrats a huge advantage, while Democrats had sought to preserve thier majority in both houses while gaining the support of minority groups seeking more representation in the legislature.
The map makes changes to nearly every district in the state, but endangers the seats of only a few representatives.
Sen. Tom Kean Jr., the Republican leader, was a major player pushing for campaign finance reform back when Democrats were in power.
His conversion to the dark side on this issue is now complete. He is raising unlimited secret donations from special interest groups, along with his partners Alex DeCroce, the Republican leader in the Assembly, and Sen. Kevin O’Toole.
The hypocrisy here is breathtaking. When Democrats were in power, Kean was the party’s point man on ethics and campaign finance. Back then, he said the controls Democrats put in place were too weak, and he was right.
Democrats had left plenty of loopholes in their pay-to-play reform, intended to ban big political contributions from companies with government contracts.
Kean was the first to point them out. This was the issue that he rode to power within the party.
That was then.
