N.J. redistricting commission holds third public hearing

Below is a prime example of what happens when a person walks into a situation without doing homework. The Republican advisor to the governor took Mr. Estevez’s comments and turned them against him. With good intent Mr. Estevez rendered comments with no preparation, unfortunately the Republican quote eats him up. Lack of preparation for statements and comments and rendering blatant lies have become very acceptable here on the local level. However, involvement with state issues in any leadership capacity requires anticipation and an understanding of what the opposition is going to do in order to be effective.

N.J. redistricting commission holds third public hearing
Wednesday, February 9, 2011

BY MATT FRIEDMAN
State House Bureau
STATE HOUSE BUREAU

NEWARK -- Democrats on the commission to redraw the state’s 40 state legislative districts Wednesday night attempted to head off an expected argument that “packing” minorities into legislative districts will elect more of them to office.

"Clearly we have more work to do, but we should not turn the clock back during the process with a map that would pack minority citizens into as few legislative districts as possible,” Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver (D-Essex), who sits on the 10-member apportionment commission, told an audience of more than 150 people at the commission’s third public hearing at an Essex County office building.

Oliver noted that she is the first female African-American Assembly speaker, and that the first Hispanic speaker, Albio Sires, served under the current legislative district map.

Ten years ago, Democrats successfully argued that minorities would be able to elect more state lawmakers if their populations were spread out over districts where they made up a significant part of the population but not a majority of it. Over the years, more minority lawmakers were elected, and the change benefited Democrats by putting Democrat-leaning minority voters into more districts.

But Latino Leadership Alliance President Martin Perez, who has met with a Republican redistricting organization, has said that strategy didn’t work, pointing out that Latinos – with just seven state lawmakers – are underrepresented in the Legislature.

Latinos now make up almost 18 percent of the state’s population, according to Census figures released last week. And while Asians make up about 8 percent of the population, there are only two Asian-American state lawmakers.

Republicans have not publicly advocated the packing strategy, although they hired an attorney, Benjamin Ginsberg, who is known for promoting it in past legislative and congressional redistricting efforts. Concentrating minority voters would mean other legislative districts would have more white voters who would be more open to voting for Republicans.

After Latino Action Network Vice-President Christian Estevez noted Hispanics live all over the state, not just in its northeastern cities, and said he opposed packing, Republicans brought up a number of towns with high minority populations that are represented by white state senators.

“Do you know who represents Perth Amboy in the state Senate?” said Bill Palatucci, a Republican member and close adviser to Governor Christie. “Who represents Pleasantville in the state Senate? Who represents Passaic in the state Senate?”

The answers: state Sens. Joseph Vitale (D-Middlesex), Jim Whelan (D-Atlantic) and Paul Sarlo (D-Bergen).

The 10-member commission, made up of five Democrats and five Republicans, has until early March to come up with a new legislative district map by themselves. If they deadlock, which is expected, state Supreme Court Chief Justice Stuart Rabner will pick an 11th tie-breaking member. From that point, the commission will have another 30 days to choose a map.

The commission’s next meeting will be Sunday at 1 p.m. in Jersey City, at Hudson Community College’s Culinary Conference Center at Culinary Conference Center, 161 Newkirk Street.

The public can keep tabs on the meetings and read transcripts at www.apportionmentcommission.org.