By Walter Elliott
MONTCLAIR – It is hard to congratulate Montclair, or commiserate with its citizens, in the wake of the New Jersey Appropriations Commission’s approval of a final 2023-32 State Legislative District Map.
The bipartisan commission voted 9-2 on the final draft and filed it with the New Jersey Department of State. The final vote and filing sets the new lines among the state’s 40 districts for the next 10 years.
The three months of draft maps and political town-trading or dividing was part of the decennial legislative redistricting set in the U.S. Constitution. The districts’ representation are to be based on evenly-divided populations based on the U.S. Census Bureau statistics.
This redistricting process runs from the federal U.S. House of Representatives level down to the municipal ward level.
Montclair, in the State Legislature’s General Assembly, remains an intact entity. The township, however, has been moved east from the 34th LD to the 27th LD.
Montclair and Passaic County’s Clifton, as of Jan. 1, 2023, joins West Orange, Livingston, Millburn and Roseland in the 27th LD.
The “New 27th” loses South Orange and Maplewood to the 28th LD. Caldwell, Essex Fells and Morris County municipalities have gone “outside” to the respective 40th and 26th LDs.
The permutation is more than residents here and six other “Local Talk” towns having to learn who are their new state senators and assembly members. Some long incumbent state legislators find themselves on a 2023 electoral collision course with their colleagues.
Sen. Nia Gill (D-Montclair) and Sen. Richard Codey (D-Roseland) appear to be vying for the same “New 27th” seat. (Each of the 40 LDs are represented by a State Senator and two General Assembly members.)
Gill, from the “Old 34th,” has a strong Montclair base. Voters here had helped her defeat an Essex County Democratic Committee-backed candidate in one year’s primary and keep her seat in the later general election.
Codey has moved with the redrawn lines before. When his naive Orange was drawn into another district, the former Governor and Senate President moved to West Orange (and, later, Roseland).
“Old 27th” assembly members John McKeon and Mila Jasey also have more than a passing interest in the changes. McKeon, (D-West Orange) was seen as succeeding Codey as a state senator when or if Codey retires.
Jasey (D-South Orange) may become a challenger to 28th LD incumbents Cleopatra Tucker (D-Newark) and Ralph Caputo (D-Nutley).
Caputo himself had moved to Bloomfield to run for LD 28th office after the 2011 redistricting spun off his native Belleville to the 29th. (He had kept his field office in Belleville’s Silver Lake section, two blocks east of the Bloomfield border, all along.)
Clifton and Millburn’s Republican Party Organizations will have to figure out who will be their New 27th challengers. Clifton had fielded challengers in the 34th and Millburn in the 27th districts.
While Montclair remains intact on the state LD map, it remains divided on the U.S. Congressional District map between Donald M. Payne, Jr. (D-Newark) and Mikie Sherrill (D-Montclair.)
In fact, Montclair’s division is more lopsided towards Sherrill’s 11th CD.
Sherrill now has all but the township’s Fourth Ward (or South End), with the latter remaining with Payne.Sherrill, on the 2011 map, had two-thirds Montclair to Payne’s one-third.
Sherrill and Payne held a joint virtual town hall meeting Feb. 24 in Bloomfield in part to discuss the Congressional redistricting. Bloomfield Mayor Michael Venezia and Essex County Commissioners Vice President Carlos Pomares (D-Bloomfield) – whose levels have had their own redistricting – hosted the Bloomfield Municipal Building session.
Sherrill moved back to Upper Montclair after renting a home for a year in Payne’s part of Montclair in 2019.
Herewith is an outline of “Local Talk” towns’ current and redrawn four state LDs:
27th Legislative District
Current Incumbents: Sen. Richard Codey (D-Roeland); Assy. John McKeon (D-West Orange), Mila Jasey (D-South Orange).
Old: South Orange, Maplewood, West Orange, Caldwell, Essex Fells, Livingston, Millburn, Roseland plus Morris County’s Chatham Township, East Hanover, Florham Park, Hanover, Harding Township and Madison.
New: West Orange, Montclair, Millburn, Livingston, Roseland and Passaic County’s Clifton.
Loses: South Orange, Maplewood (to the 28th LD); Caldwell, Essex Fells (to the 40th LD); Chatham, East Hanover, Florham Park. Hanover, Madison, Harding (to the 26th LD).
Gains: Montclair, Clifton (from the 34th LD).
28th LD
Incumbents: Sen. Ronald L. Rice (D-Newark); Assy. Cleopatra Tucker (D-Newark), Ralph Caputo (D-Nutley).
Old: Irvington, Bloomfield, Glen Ridge, Nutley, parts of Newark’s South, North and West Wards.
New: Irvington, South Orange, Maplewood, Newark’s “Southwest Ward,” Newark’s West Ward-Vailsburg and “S.W. West Ward”, Union County’s Hillside.
Loses: Newark’s “Southeast Ward,” West Ward-West Side and North Ward (to the 29th LD); Bloomfield, Glen Ridge, Nutley (to the 34th LD).
Gains: South Orange, Maplewood (from the 27th LD); Hillside (from the 20th LD).
29th LD
Incumbents: Sen. Teresa Ruiz; Assy. Elana Pintor Marin, Shanique Speight (all D-Newark).
Old: Belleville, the remainder of Newark.
New: All of Newark’s North, East and Central Wards West Ward’s West Side and “Southeastern” South Ward.
Loses: Belleville (to the 34th LD).
Gains: Newark’s North Ward, West Ward-West Side, “Southeast Ward.”
34th LD
Incumbents: Sen Nia Gill (D-Montclair); Assy. Britnee Timberlake (D-East Orange), Thomas Giblin (D-Montclair).
Old: East Orange, Orange, Montclair, Passaic County’s Clifton.
New: East Orange, Orange, Glen Ridge, Bloomfield, Belleville, Nutley.
Loses: Montclair, Clifton (to the 27th LD).
Gains: Bloomfield, Glen Ridge, Nutley (from the 28th LD); Belleville (from the 29).
