By Gene Robbins, The Packet Group
Redistricting — the once-in-a-decade process to even up the size of the 40 legislative districts — reached a head Sunday, just a week before candidates for state office have to file petitions to get on the ballot for this year’s elections.
Politicians and prospects now know the makeup of their election districts, and have until next Monday to file to get on the June primary ballots.
Lawmakers must live in the area they represent, so the new map may mean that legislators whom voters have grown used to seeing or hearing about in the last 10 years now might live outside the boundaries of their new district. Assembly incumbents, such as Reed Gusciora (currently in the 15th District) of Princeton and Denise Coyle (current 16th District) of Basking Ridge, for instance, face a choice — change their place of residence or run for office in an unfamiliar area.
The 2010 Census population counts, certified in early February, triggered the clock in the process. Both political parties drew maps to their preference. Each district aimed to have a population of about 220,000, plus or minus 5 percent, to be relatively equal, said Ingrid Reed, who worked at Rutgers University’s Eagleton Institute of Politics until last summer.
The respective maps went to a redistricting commission of five Democrats and five Republicans. It began meeting jointly in January and, not surprisingly, deadlocked. On March 3 state Supreme Court Justice Stuart Rabner chose a tie-breaking independent member, Alan Rosenthal, 78, a Princeton resident and a Rutgers University political science professor and director of the Eagleton Institute from 1974-94, as the neutral tie-breaking member.
Mr. Rosenthal worked with the two parties to try to develop a consensus, Ms. Reed said, but ultimately had to choose one of the parties’ maps. He selected the one submitted by the Democrats, who immediately proclaimed “victory” in a press release from their state leadership. A GOP court challenge is possible, but not considered likely.
On Monday, Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican, said the new map, was “only slightly better” than the previous map, which he called “unfair and unconstitutional.” He had jumped into the debate personally, meeting three times with the GOP team during commission meetings in the last few weeks.
Central New Jersey is one of the most radically re-configured areas. Nine municipalities have been moved out in the 16th District, for instance, and five different ones included, said Ms. Reed. Its common characteristic is post-war, sprawling suburbia, she said, with a number of older boroughs.
Most of the Packet chain’s circulation area — including Princeton, Hillsborough, South Brunswick — is in the redrawn 16th District and 15th District, centered around Trenton and including the Hopewells, Lambertville and West Windsor.
The 16th was a compact north-south district — it took 25 minutes to get from one end to the other, said Peter Biondi, one of its Assembly members. It has been changed to a meandering east-west that stretches from the Delaware River (Delaware Township in Hunterdon) to South Brunswick at its easternmost end. South Brunswick was shifted to the 16th from the Democratic-leaning 14th, today represented by three Democrats.
Mr. Biondi, a former mayor of Hillsborough and a Republican, said what’s happened to Somerset County is “not good.” Parts of the county will fall into five legislative districts, — 17 16 21 23 and 25 meaning that 15 legislators will represent parts of the county in Trenton for the next decade, he said. Mr. Biondi called it “unbelievable,” but said he and GOP state Sen. Kip Bateman would “absolutely” be running again.
But the hometown of their district colleague, Assemblywoman Denise Coyle of Bernards Township, was shifted into the 21st, meaning she would either have to move to run in familiar turf, or spend a lot of time and money trying to make herself known to a new set of constituents. She said Monday night she was going to run again, but didn’t say what district, She formerly lived in Branchburg Township, where served on the Township Committee.
In a similar situation is Reed Gusciora, a Democrat who has been in the Assembly since 1996. His hometown of Princeton Borough has been moved out of the 15th district and into the heavily Republican 16th. Mr. Gusciora said he would put his Princeton home on the market and move to Trenton, center of the reshaped 15th district.
Mr. Biondi said he considered his district less Republican “by about half.” It lost Franklin, he said, but gained Princeton. “In Princeton, if we win one vote, I’d be happy,” he said. “That’s how liberal they are.”
But Republicans have historically won state legislative seats in the 16th District by comfortable margins. An average win was a 12,000-vote margin, Mr. Biondi said.
He didn’t anticipate any challenge in the June primary and wasn’t aware of any Democrat — if incumbent Gusciora moves out of Princeton — who would put up a serious challenge.
The 15th District was one of the districts smaller than the ideal 220,000 population and had to be expanded. It added West Windsor, and East and West Amwell in Hunterdon.
From the 1700s to 1966, New Jersey’s Legislature was made up of two assembly members and one senator from each of the 21 counties. That meant that rural Somerset, for instance, had the same voting strength as heavily populated Essex or Hudson.
Then, in the 1960s, federal law and the courts decreed that state election districts have roughly the same number of people, while trying to be compact and fair to minorities.
So, since 1971, New Jersey has had 40 state legislative districts (each with two members of the assembly and one senator) drawn with little regard to county lines.

