A redistricting map so sensible there's unfortunately zero chance NJ will adopt it

It's amazing what you can do when you bother to obey Constitutional principles. The Bayshore Tea Party Group followed the letter of the law and devised a redistricting map for New Jersey which is truly a work of genius. No gerrymandering. No carve-outs for sacrosanct minority voting blocs. No protected turf for entrenched powerhouse politicians.

Just nice, meaningfully contiguous, well-defined voting districts which group people from the same towns and counties together. You know, so neighbors can vote for a person from their own neighborhood. Not the guy the party bosses picked because your district runs for 6 miles down the middle of I-280 so Caldwell could be an afterthought appendage bound with parts of Newark and Orange.

See for yourself:

They call it "The People's Map." They aren't kidding. It's certainly not "the incumbent's map," Politicians have long ignored the redistricting criteria specified in the NJ State Constitution in order to serve their own selfish ends. But just because they've always had their way is no reason to continue what amounts to questionable assignments of voting districts.

The State Constitution is quite clear — districts should be as compact as possible, be all in one piece, and district boundaries must be drawn to minimize the number of times counties are split.

No redistricting map in recent history has even paid lip service to those requirements.

It's time for that to change. Tell the New Jersey Apportionment Commission to support The People's Map.

Posted at 18:19 by Chris Wysocki   [/tea_party]   Comments | Perm Link |
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