TRENTON — A tea party group filed a lawsuit today challenging the constitutionality of the newly adopted legislative district map. The Bayshore Tea Party, who said they were joined by 38 other plaintiffs from the state’s 21 counties, said the map violates the state and federal Constitution because South Jersey districts generally have larger populations while North Jersey districts...
TRENTON — A tea party group filed a lawsuit today challenging the constitutionality of the newly adopted legislative district map.
The Bayshore Tea Party, who said they were joined by 38 other plaintiffs from the state’s 21 counties, said the map violates the state and federal Constitution because South Jersey districts generally have larger populations while North Jersey districts have smaller ones.
“This lawsuit is crucial to protect the longstanding ‘one person, one vote’ principle. I hope our diligence will raise voter awareness of the voters of New Jersey to recognize the value of their vote,” said Barbara Gonzales, the group’s founder.
The map was adopted on April 3 after a two month long state legislative redistricting process. Democrats and Republicans had competing plans, and the Democrats won out by winning over the vote of the redistricting commission’s tiebreaker, Rutgers professor Alan Rosenthal.
The Bayshore Tea Party drew its own map they dubbed “The People’s Map” and asked the commission to consider it.
The suit also claims that reducing the number of times Jersey City and Newark are split – from 3 to 2 – “dilutes and nullifies the voices of the voters there.”
Jersey City and Newark have been split into more than two legislative districts for decades despite the state Constitution’s provision that should not be split more times than necessary according to their population. But recent federal case law led both Democrats and Republicans to only split the two cities twice on their 2011 redistricting proposals.
Previous coverage:
• N.J. State Legislative District Map (PDF)
• Breakdown of N.J. towns by legislative district (PDF)
• 2011 Legislative Map breakdown (PDF)
• Redistricting commission approves Democratic-proposed legislative map
• Guest column: How to fix the redistricting conundrum
• Democratic State Senator might move to increase reelection chances
• Minority coalition sides with Democrats' proposed N.J. redistricting map
• Both parties to make final pitches to tiebreaker in N.J. redistricting meetings
• N.J. minority groups say they're unhappy with legislative redistricting process
• Gov. Christie arrives in New Brunswick for N.J. redistricting commission meetings