By Walter Elliott
NEWARK – “Local Talk” area residents may not only want to say “Hello” to their members of Congress as a late New Year’s resolution but, after examining the prospective Congressional redistricting, some may want to introduce themselves to their “new” House representative.
It is this time of the decade when states reveal their redrawn Congressional Districts to the public. The new map, covering New Jersey’s 12 CDs, was adopted by a designated commission Dec. 22 and is pending certification.
This final, certified map, based on 2020 U.S. Census Bureau counts, is to be used 2022-31. It is part of a U.S. Constitutional requirement to balance the 435 U.S. House of Representatives membership on even-numbered populations. every 10 years.
The following redrawn Eighth, 10th and 11th CDs Local Talk residents live in is the result of the NJ Redistricting Commission’s deliberations and Dec. 22 adoption vote. That committee – except for its chairman, former State Supreme Court associate justice John Wallace — was evenly made up of six Democratic and Republican representatives each.
The Dec. 22 split vote was taken after the commission took public and expert testimony for four days in a Cherry Hill hotel meeting room. There had also been 10 earlier public meetings – some virtual, some in-person, on the maps.
Redrawing those district maps, given the predominance of the two major political parties, is where the divine or the infernal details are found.
Federal and state judges are looking over the NJRC’s shoulder for gerrymandering. Gerrymandering is where election districts are redrawn in such a way that it favors a political party or its constituents at the disadvantage of the other.
IN THE EIGHTH CD, Newark’s North and East Wards stay with Union County’s Elizabeth plus East Newark, Harrison, industrial Kearny, Bayonne, Jersey City’s south, east and north section and five other Hudson County towns.
Belleville, however, is now part of the 11th CD’s northeast Essex County expansion. “Western and Central” Jersey City have been reassigned to the 10th CD.
Residents in the revamped Eighth will have a limited time to reacquaint or introduce themselves to Albio Sires (D-W. New York). Sires, on Dec. 21, announced that he will not seek re-election in 2022 and will retire with the 117th Congress just after Jan. 1, 2023.
IN THE10th CD (Donald M. Payne, Jr. D-Newark), the remainder of Newark, Irvington, East Orange, Orange and West Orange stay where they are.
The 10th, however, cedes South Orange, Maplewood, Nutley, Bloomfield, Glen Ridge and most of Montclair to the 11th CD. It does keep Montclair’s Fourth Ward/South End.
The district gains Verona, Essex Fells and Caldwell to its west and “Western/Central” Jersey City to its east. It also retains Union County’s Hillside, Union, Roselle, Roselle Park, Kenilworth, Cranford, Garwood and the western part of Linden.
IN THE 11th CD (Mikie Sherrill, D-Montclair), the “Local Talk” area towns of South Orange, Maplewood, Belleville, Bloomfield, Nutley, Glen Ridge and three of Montclair’s four wards are among its latest members.
The “other West Essex towns” – Millburn, Livingston, Cedar Grove, North and West Caldwell, Roselan.d and Fairfield – are now in the district. “Southwestern Passaic County” has also been added to the 11th’s core of 25 Morris County municipalities.
The 11th now encompasses 41 towns in parts of Essex, Passaic and Morris counties.
John Wallace’s decisive Dec. 22 vote approved the Democratic Party drawn map over the Republican map – but the process is not over.
State Republicans have appealed to the State Supreme Court to at least halt the certification of the Democratic map. They have gone before the Trenton high bench Jan. 4.
The state justices asked Wallace for an explanation for his choice. Wallace said, in a Jan. 11 filing, said that he had applied the “partisan fairness” and “party blind” tests to each party’s maps and compared them to a computer-drawn theoretical map.
By applying partisan fairness, Wallace said he was looking for the map that best reflects the voting pattern in terms of party wins and losses. By party blind, he said he compared all three maps. Wallace said he then chose the Democratic map.
Wallace first said, on Dec. 22, that he had chosen the Democratic map because the Republican 2012-21 map was approved 10 years ago – and it was the Democratic map’s turn.
The State Supreme Court has meanwhile directed both parties to submit their briefs – no more than 15 or 60 pages long – on or before Jan. 21. The prospective new map has already generated two local responses.
One observer pointed out on Jan. 14 that the Essex County College will have to work with two House Representatives. While the Newark Main Campus remains in Payne’s 10th CD, its West Caldwell Campus is now in Sherrill’s 11th CD.
Several neighbors along Bloomfield’s Maolis Avenue started a petition Jan. 18 to have their House Representative find a solution to increasing flooding coming from Glen Ridge stormwater runoff. They had addressed their petition to Payne and Sherrill.
And redistricting will not end with the CDs. Prospective redrawing will be done on the State Assembly, on the Essex County Ward Commissioners and, at the municipal level, perhaps in your neighborhood.
