How can the people be expected to act according to the “law” when over time and when finally, the law has been distorted and manipulated to protect a selected few?

How can the people make the positive change necessary to correct the abuses with in “their Government”. The People are suppose to be the safeguard against any faction in government that might usurp the constitution, it’s enumerated powers and the over all and complete process of The Peoples Government. The process of change, the handing over of the Government stewardship from one citizen to another has been corrupted by the very people “citizens” elected and therefore trusted to protect the peoples liberties and laws. The heart and soul of this problem lies in the process to which Districting, redistricting and the process of reapportionment is practiced.

To allow the “Select” elected few, who wish to maintain their power and therefore collect more of the same, until they no longer can be touched or harmed of their heightened position, can only achieve such power through the process of time and acquaintance. The only way to achieve the time needed to gain and maintain such power is to corrupt the selection process of the people, other wise known as the voting process. Therefore, never having to answer to the people for their legislative foolishness, tyrannical and over reaching laws and regulations that they set upon the citizen that has entrusted them with such powers and duties.

These select few have undermined the voting process. The select few that I refer to are the body of elected officials themselves, either in part or as a whole. They have become life long career politicians, other wise known as the “Ruling Class”. But the only selecting of them is among themselves, no longer a choice of the people.

The “Ruling Class”, the very people that would have us believe that we have selected or chosen them to represent us through the election process have managed and manipulated “The Peoples will”, through the process of voting at its most basic level of the “Checks and Balance” process. The very “Checks and Balance” set in place to safeguard the people from corruption and tyranny of men in government has been removed from our disposal through what is known as Gerrymandering.

The manipulation of lines and borders which make up the peoples voting districts are so very easily distorted in ways in which it makes it nearly impossible for anyone group of people to be enabled of a truthful and honest say in the process of voting.

In New Jersey, this problem was brought to the attention of the people only a few decades ago. Because of it, the State created a commission or committee in which to distance the elected politician from the process of drawing redistricting lines. This was an attempt to keep elected officials from selecting their voter block. In other words “The elected selecting their voters rather than the voter electing his representative. With this, the effort to put a stop to the corruption of voter fraud from the highest of offices and our elected officials themselves. The Amendment was added to the state constitution and this made everything better in Trenton once again, and the people were now afforded a Constitutionally fair and honest process of redistricting which in return would guarantee fair and honest elections. But did it? I think not!

The process in which our elected officials devised in order to distance themselves (which is an oxymoron in it self) was one where they (the elected) would appoint someone other than an elected such as themselves to sit on said committees and commissions. So technically they are removed from the process of redistricting. But only one step are they removed. Only to be separated by the very people they have appointed to conduct the process. This process in which they have devised insults me for one and should be an insult to every thinking man and woman. It is an insult to all citizens to think we cannot see through some of the most simplistic forms or corruption. Although I will admit that it has taken decades for the people to rise up and refuse such a process of corruption, we have only ourselves to blame for not speaking out when the injustice to our character and intelligents were first being insulted upon.

I liken this to the Wolf employing the Fox to guard the Hen house.

During the Reapportionment for the state redistricting the citizens created a constitutionally fair and honest map. The elected parties ignored this map and carried forward with their unconstitutional and therefore corrupt maps. The elected negotiated between the maps that their appointed commissions created and in doing so one side relinquished power to the other in order to save everyone their elected positions.

The corruption in and of the power has caused an unbalanced, unfair counting of votes in the voting system. Through Gerrymandering they have rigged the dice, so that almost no matter who the people might vote for, the outcome will always be in the favor of the incumbent. Thus leaving them with the ability to maintain power, do as they see fit in legislating law “no matter what the people want” and for it, never having to answer to anyone but themselves. To themselves and amongst each other? This is clearly the Fox guarding the Hen house.

If you want your vote to count, if you really want change in our government and bring it back to the people, it must begin with the correction and a newfound integrity of this most basic of process. It must some how be removed from the hands of elected officials completely. There must be a way for the people to be assured that they are being presented with a constitutional District map, both Congressional and State . They must be assured and confident that their vote will not be watered down, so that they may return to the voting both with the confidence that their vote does count.

This process must be corrected. But soon we will be upon the date in which the Congressional map will be submitted. Every man woman and child must let it be known that any map other than a true constitutional map is unexceptible.     

 www.wsj.com

Saving the Incumbents

A Rutgers professor preserves the New Jersey gerrymander.

Thank heaven there were no Rutgers professors in the Continental Congress. The result might have been a declaration of obedience. That's essentially what one faculty member at the New Jersey university is foisting on all of the state's voters.

The 2010 Census triggered the once-a-decade redrawing of the Garden State's political map. The legal mandate is to ensure that each of the state's legislative districts includes roughly the same number of people. But many Jersey voters were also hoping for reform of extreme gerrymandering that had left the state with only two competitive districts and a Democratic lock on the legislature.

So rigged are the districts that although the GOP won the two-party vote for assembly in the 2009 elections 52% to 48%, Democrats lost only one seat and kept a still-commanding 47-33 majority. State senators weren't on the ballot in 2009, so the 23-17 Democratic advantage remained until last year, when Democrats gained another seat in a special election. Three times in the last decade Republicans won a majority of the vote in the assembly or senate but failed to win a majority of the seats.

Amazingly, Rutgers political science professor Alan Rosenthal thinks that protecting the state's legislative incumbents is a good thing. And luckily for those incumbents, Mr. Rosenthal was appointed by the chief justice of New Jersey's supreme court to serve as the tie-breaking vote on the commission responsible for approving a new map.

Prior to Mr. Rosenthal's appointment, the commission included five Democrats and five Republicans, with each party proposing its own set of new legislative boundaries. The Rutgers professor pondered the competing plans and then sided with the Democratic map, which largely embraces the status quo.

In previous disputes, Mr. Rosenthal had sometimes favored Republican maps, so his latest decision doesn't appear to be the work of a partisan hack. What has state residents scratching their heads is Mr. Rosenthal's rationale. In announcing his decision, Mr. Rosenthal said that the virtues of the Democratic plan include "continuity of representation." He also lauded the plan for being "less disruptive" than the alternative. Sounds like the platform for a Bashar Assad re-election campaign.

But could the professor really believe that the New Jersey legislature is such a model institution that it needs to be protected from competition, lest voters disrupt its wise deliberations? This is the esteemed body that cooked Jersey's pension books so egregiously that it inspired the first fraud charge against a state government by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Parents of Rutgers students have lately been outraged that the school paid $32,000 to Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi, the star of MTV's dimwit reality series "Jersey Shore," to speak on campus. But the harm that entrenched incumbents can do is infinitely more expensive, so perhaps the grown-ups should be directing their fire at the political science department.

Governor Chris Christie tells us that he will still be able to move pending reforms of health-care and pension benefits through the legislature, despite Mr. Rosenthal's bizarre decision. As for Prof. Rosenthal, he now says that possible litigation prevents him from commenting further.

Other states now engaged in redistricting would do better to remember that the point of elections is to allow open competition to select the best candidates, not to uphold the status quo. And we almost cannot believe that this point needs to be made.

*Note: Our thanks goes out to The Wall Street Journal for one of the most honest articles written on the subject of gerrymandering we have come across 

Behind the curtain, Republicans in the process of making "sausage"

Today the product of months of backroom deals, corruption, and the good old boy mentality produced a disgrace and an illegal state legislative district map. The process of redistricting needs to be drastically reformed to take politicians whether they are Republican or Democrat out of the direct process of making legislative districts. 

 You are allowing the politicians to choose their voters, instead of allowing the voters to choose their elected officials! It is like putting a cookie jar in a room with toddlers and expecting them not to eat the cookies. Of course they are going to eat the cookies, and of course the politicians are going to gerrymander the districts to serve their purposes and not the purposes of the people of New Jersey!

 On March 31 I had the opportunity to be in both the Republican and the Democrat meeting rooms where they were creating the districts they wanted in the new map. Both rooms had about a dozen computers each, compared to Bayshore with a pencil, notepad, and a calculator. The only reason you need a dozen computers is to evade the redistricting requirements under the law.

A gerrymandered and illegal legislative map

Director of the Polling Institute says BTPG Map “worth adding to the discussion”

Middletown, NJ – Six hours after the Bayshore Tea Party Group released their contribution to New Jersey’s decennial redistricting process, Monmouth University Professor and Director of the Polling Institute, Patrick

Murray, had this to say on PolitickerNJ

"Except for what appears to be an inadvertent split of Egg Harbor Township between districts 1 and 2 (which will require some re-tooling), the map's parameters are solid. It also maintains and perhaps enhances minority representation (basically as well as the map proposed by the minority coalition!) and provides for real competition for control of the next legislature. Of course, it is unkind to incumbents, and thus contrary to what Rosenthal has laid out as his priorities. On the whole, a map worth adding to the discussion."

BTPG is encouraged to hear Mr. Murray, author of three separate redistricting maps (“Constitutional”, “Competitive” and “De Minimis”), acknowledge that the Bayshore Tea Party Group’s map is worthy of consideration by the Apportionment Commission.

Bayshore Tea Party Group Redistricting Chairman and primary creator of the map had this in response:

“It’s amazing what can happen when you simply abide by the Constitution.”

Being first a non-gerrymandered map that relies solely on the three Constitutional requirements for guidance and having now enjoyed the compliment of a prominent New Jersey scholar, the Bayshore Tea Party Group urges the Apportionment Commission to heed Mr. Murray’s statement and make “The People’s Map” a part of the conversation.

You can find and download the map and district key in PDF form here

The Bayshore Tea Party Group Headquarters is located at 275 Rt. 35N in Fairview, NJ. Please contact infobtpg@gmail.com or call 732-842-6652 for more information.

• Compactness
• Contiguity, and
• Not dividing counties more than necessary.

The most blatant violation on their map is the Sixth District, which slithers its way from Brigantine on the Atlantic, to Haddon, right next to Camden. At most points, the borders of the district, from north to south, consist of only a single town. Along the way, in order to connect the towns from the Atlantic, to almost the Delaware, it picks up Washington Township, in Burlington County, a very large town in the Pine Barrens, but, in which, only 687 people reside. There are no other towns within the district to the north or south of Washington before it connects with Hammonton on the west and Galloway and Port Republic on the east.

The group’s Eleventh District presents another classic example of gerrymandering. It begins in Matawan and Old Bridge on the Raritan Bay, but ends in Mansfield in Burlington County, only miles from the Delaware River. In another intriguing twist, it separates Matawan from Aberdeen Township, included in the map’s Thirteenth District. Most residents of Matawan and Aberdeen, which together form the Matawan-Aberdeen Regional School District, would consider this division to be bizarre. Although these are the most brazen examples of gerrymandering, numerous others exist throughout the map.

Furthermore, the map splits a number of counties into more districts than allowed by the New Jersey Constitution. For example, Bergen County, with around 905,000 people, should be split into no more than five districts under the New Jersey Constitution. However, the Coalition’s map splits Bergen into seven districts. Middlesex should be constitutionally split into four districts, but the Coalition’s map also splits the county into seven. Monmouth ideally should be split into three districts. The Coalition map: five. Again, these are just a few examples.

Overall, the district lines drawn by the New Jersey Legislative Redistricting Coalition are so absurd that their map should not receive any consideration by the New Jersey Apportionment Commission. The people of New Jersey will no longer tolerate a gerrymandered map. Let’s follow the New Jersey Constitution. Doing so will help assure that the votes of everyone in New Jersey will count. It will give all of our state’s citizens, including minorities, the opportunity to choose responsive representatives in fair elections.

A coalition of minority groups Wednesday released their version of a legislative map as they look to boost the opportunities for minority representation in the state legislature.

The map, which was created by the New Jersey Legislative Redistricting Coalition, would maintain the number of existing "majority minority: districts and double the number of so-called coalition districts, where minorities make up a majority of voters but no one group holds a majority, would double from 7 to 14.

“We believe that our map reflects the 2010 U.S. Census and speaks to the realities in all communities across the State of New Jersey,” said Jerry Harris, Co-Chairman of the Coalition and Chairman of the New Jersey Black Issues Convention. “The Coalition is hopeful that the State Apportionment Commission will consider our map and accept the fact that African Americans, Asians and Hispanics now represent more than 40% of our State’s population. Our map increases the opportunities for New Jersey’s legislature to better reflect its broad and diverse population.”

Among the changes advocated by the group would be a combined district that includes Perth Amboy, New Brunswick, Edison, Metuchen and Woodbridge, which would pit state Sens. Barbara Buono and Joe Vitale in a primary.  The coalition map would combine Vineland and Atlantic City into a new 2nd District. The combination of these two cities would create a district where Latinos, blacks and Asians would make up 53 percent of the district population allowing for more opportunity for minority representatives.

Via Newark Examiner-Terry Hurlbut:

A former New Jersey State Senator takes little cognizance of the latest report showing how far apart the two delegations of the Legislative Apportionment Commission are, and says that the reporting ignores the reality of the population shift.

Former Senator Richard J. LaRossa, founder of The National Term Limits Coalition, commented last night on this report by Matt Friedman of the Statehouse Bureau, based apparently on four separate leaks that Friedman had received of the Republican and Democratic plans for a new district map. The Apportionment Commission must decide on a new map by April 3, about one week before the primary filing deadline.

Friedman stated on Sunday that the Republicans submitted a plan that would pit multiple Democratic incumbents against one another in primaries. (One Democrat left out of that bloodbath:  Senator Brian Stack of Union City, who lately has expressed fulsome praise of Governor Chris Christie.)

Friedman talks a lot about the Republicans' plans to force Democrats to run against each other, but says little or nothing about the Democrats doing the same thing. And do you really believe that they won't?

LaRossa also agreed with Patrick Murray, whom Friedman described as puzzled by the Republican map, given Tiebreaker Alan Rosenthal's expressed preference for districts that ensure "continuity of representation," meaning that as few incumbents as possible find their towns switched to another district, and that all incumbents face as many of the same voters as they have been facing for the last ten years.

But LaRossa also raised an issue that Friedman failed to address: the population shift. Quite simply, too many districts in South Jersey have to shrink, and too many districts in North Jersey have to grow, in order to meet the stringent criteria that Rosenthal has set: that no district deviate in population by more than five percent from the ideal mean, or one-fortieth of the total population of New Jersey. This year, that mean is "just under 220,000 residents."

Given those tight margins, some primary fights between incumbents are almost inevitable in North Jersey, but not in South Jersey, which will gain districts, LaRossa said.

Nevertheless LaRossa identified one, and only one, district likely to be at all competitive: the 14th. That is already the most competitive district in New Jersey, and will remain that way.

LaRossa also reiterated his earlier statement that the new map is "a done deal" for the Democrats, and suggested that all the leaks that Friedman received were just so much noise. This is somewhat in keeping with Rosenthal's stated desire, according to Friedman, not to have the "remapping debate...play out in the press." (For reasons that are not clear, Friedman's article is no longer listed in the most recent articles on Politics and Government at nj.com. It does, however, remain listed at northjersey.com, home of The Record of Hackensack.)

Finally, LaRossa expressed shock and astonishment that anyone would be talking about filing for primary spots this month. He pointed to this statement, which remains on the home page of the Division of Elections:

Please be advised that the 2011 redistricting of the State Legislative Districts have not been finalized. If you file your nomination petition prior to the lines being finalized, it will be your responsibility to review, and if necessary amend, your nomination petition to ensure that you have a minimum of 100 voter signatures in the applicable legislative district on or before the April 11, 2011 filing deadline.

If your petition requires amending due to redistricting and you do not amend, you risk the possibility of being challenged and removed as a candidate.

It's almost guaranteed that Mr. Rosenthal's desire to keep redistricting out of the press will go unfulfilled.

Stay tuned...

Packing, Cracking, and Stacking

Unfortunately, the treatment of racial and ethnic groups, especially given the rise in Hispanic population, upstages the prevention of gerrymandering in the public redistricting debates. Attention centers on “packing,” “cracking,” and “stacking.” Packing means putting as many people as possible who share similar or identical characteristics in the same district. Cracking denotes spreading out those who share the same or identical characteristics into multiple districts. Finally, stacking means creating a district with a large minority population in the midst of a larger white population.

Political parties often resort to such means, claiming they can satisfy the demands of minorities to be able to elect legislators that better represent them. However, such tactics frequently shortchange the very minorities that the parties claim to be helping. Packing a minority population into a district might allow that minority to elect one of their own to the legislature. However, the minority’s influence in surrounding districts will be diffused. So, they might ultimately lose clout in the legislature. Furthermore, not all of the members of a minority necessarily share identical interests. Alternately, splitting up, or cracking, a minority population into a few different districts might allow the minority more influence in those several districts, but there will be less of a chance for the minority to elect a representative of its choice.

The districting map chosen by the 2001 Apportionment Commission divided the cities of Jersey City and Newark into three districts, instead of the two districts required by the New Jersey Constitution. Proponents claimed that this would enhance the influence and representation of Hispanic and African-American minorities. However, ten years later, many dispute the results. For example, critics point out that during this time, Hispanic representation in the state legislature increased by only one - from six to seven. At the Apportionment Commission’s February 13 hearing, Jersey City Mayor Jeremiah Healy complained that dividing, or cracking, the city into three districts diluted his constituents’ influence.

In contrast, State Senator Sandra Cunningham, representing the 31st District, one of the three districts that Jersey City was divided into, said, “The practice of packing minorities . . . into a district will have the impact of creating an ‘us versus them’ district, where legislation that meets the needs of minorities will have difficulty in passing.”

Assemblywoman Annette Quijano, who represents the 20th District in Union County, testified that she opposes both packing and cracking, and believes that “everyone should have a vote, and since Latinos are in every county in the state, they should vote where they live, and have district lines accordingly.”

Packing, cracking, and stacking ultimately disserve all voters, whether minority or not. These devious forms of gerrymandering only benefit the political parties manipulating the district boundaries and the residents within. It is best to let citizens, irregardless of race or ethnicity, “vote where they live, and have district lines [drawn] accordingly,” without the specter of gerrymandering. We should concentrate on drawing constitutionally fair and competitive districts that give not only every group, but every individual, proper representation.

Codey: Provide the Democrats with More Districts

Some New Jersey politicians, like State Senator Richard Codey, blatantly advocate for partisan gerrymandering. According to Codey, since New Jersey typically votes Democrat in national and gubernatorial elections, legislative districts should be drawn to assure a Democrat majority in the legislature. He writes, “a fair and representative map would provide for more Democratic than Republican legislative districts.” In other words, he believes the Apportionment Commission should draw districts that provide Democrats with more legislative districts than Republicans. How absurd! Drawing maps that gerrymander districts to make it a fait accompli that Democrats win more seats, not only blatantly violates our state’s Constitution, but also denies the fundamental choice to the voter that is the essential basis of our precious democracy. (“Redistricting map should be drawn with fairness,” Richard J. Codey, March 7, 2011.)

What Does the New Jersey Constitution Say?

The New Jersey Constitution clearly lays out what legislative districts should look like. Article IV, Section 2 of the New Jersey Constitution states, “The Assembly districts shall be composed of contiguous territory, as nearly compact and equal in the number of their inhabitants as possible.” In plain English, this means that parts of a district should be as close to each other as possible, should be adjacent to each other, and should be roughly equal in population.

Section 2 further states that “no county or municipality shall be divided among Assembly districts unless it shall contain more than one-fortieth of the total number of inhabitants of the State.” According to the latest census, the population of New Jersey stands at almost 8.8 million. One-fortieth of this number equals about 220,000. The only two cities within New Jersey with more than 220,000 are Jersey City and Newark. No other towns or cities in New Jersey should be divided between more than one legislative district.

Finally, according to Section 2, “no county or municipality shall be divided among a number of Assembly districts larger than one plus the whole number obtained by dividing the number of inhabitants in the county or municipality by one-fortieth of the total number of inhabitants of the State.” Huh? This is what that means: First, take the number of people in the county, town, or city, and divide it by 220,000. Since the formula requires a “whole number” drop the remainder. Now add one. The number that results equals the maximum number of districts that the county, town, or city can be divided into.

So, for instance, Bergen County has a population of just over 900,000. When divided by 220,000, we get four. Drop the remainder to get a whole number. Now we add one, and we get five. Therefore, Bergen County should not be divided into more than five legislative districts. By the way, Bergen County is currently divided into seven districts.

Now let’s do the municipalities. Only Newark and Jersey City have more than 220,000 people: Newark with just over 277,000 and Jersey City with 247,597. Divide these by 220,000 and we get one. Remember, drop the remainder so we get a whole number. Now add one, and we get two. This means that Newark and Jersey city should not be divided into more than two districts. They are each currently divided into three.

Mathematically, some over splits of counties may need to occur in order to keep districts contiguous, compact, and within the equal population requirement. However, currently, fourteen out of 21, two-thirds of counties in New Jersey, have more legislative districts than allowed by the state Constitution. Seven, or one-third of counties have two more districts than allowed. Essex County has three more than allowed. Partisan advantage can be the only reasonable explanation for such discrepancy from the state Constitution’s requirements. The Commission should refrain from making such unnecessary and unconstitutional extraneous splits when creating the new districting map.

Professor Rosenthal’s Standards

On Thursday, March 10 in Trenton, at his first public hearing since his official appointment as the eleventh member of the Apportionment Commission, Professor Alan Rosenthal of Rutgers’ Eagleton Institute, enumerated nine standards that will guide his decision of what map to choose. Encouragingly, the first four standards he announced were those identified in the New Jersey Constitution:

• Population equality,
• No divisions of municipalities other than Jersey City and Newark, which would be divided into two districts,
• Contiguity, and
• Compactness.

In another hopeful sign, he also named competitiveness as his seventh factor. The other standards he cited were:

• Communities of interest
• Continuity of representation
• The requirements of the Voting Rights Act, and
• “Partisan fairness.”

At previous public hearings, most participants urged Commissioners to create districts that would allow minorities, particularly Hispanics, to elect more of their own to the Legislature. However, in Trenton, about half of speakers admonished the Commission to choose districts that would promote competitive elections.

It is time for the Apportionment Commission to provide relief for the collective headaches of the people of New Jersey yearning for competitive races in districts drawn according to our state’s Constitution. The unfair practices of packing, cracking, stacking, and all other forms of partisan gerrymandering solely benefit the political parties using these manipulative methods. Only Constitutionally fair and competitive districts will result in more opportunities for everyone in New Jersey to have their voices heard. Such districts will allow every vote in New Jersey to count. Let’s “make elections matter again.”

Via APP:

Steep drop-offs in the population of some municipalities, especially small towns, have officials and residents believing the decennial head count by the U.S. Census Bureau could be off by thousands. That could cost towns federal aid.

There are 53 towns in New Jersey with populations under 1,500 and, collectively, they lost 3,448 people during the last 10 years, according to the 2010 Census. That's a drop of 7 percent.

Small towns losing hundreds apiece include the seaside communities of Sea Bright, Deal and Allenhurst in Monmouth County, Bay Head and Mantoloking in Ocean County and Stone Harbor and Avalon in Cape May County.

Some inland boroughs also lost population, according to the census, including Farmingdale in Monmouth County and Hampton and Frenchtown in Hunterdon County.

Are the population losses real?

Not according to some public servants in those towns. They offer evidence: In Avalon, for example, a new hardware store opened downtown, even though census figures claim its official population dropped by 38 percent to 1,334.

Though experts on the 2010 Census vouch for the bureau's ability to find and count people, others say systemic problems could have resulted in an undercount that may well come into focus most sharply in the state's smaller towns.

But wait! New Jersey's foremost resident population loss expert, the 6th District's own Francis J. Pallone, weighs in with his usual cosmic brilliance:

"A head count is not an exact science," said Rep. Frank J. Pallone Jr., a Democrat whose 6th Congressional District includes Sea Bright, where, according to the census, population fell more than 22 percent, from 1,818 to 1,412.

Long an advocate of statistical sampling, Pallone added: "I don't doubt the numbers are off."

As required by the Constitution, the mission of the census is to count people, not to list who died, moved away or became empty-nesters.

Thanks for clearing that up Frank.

End...gerrymandering.

Not that there isn't a certain delicious schadenfreude in watching them go to war with each other though:

A possible fracture within the New Jersey Democratic party is becoming publicly apparent, though what effect this will have on the ultimate choice of a redistricting map is unclear.

The Star-Ledger (Newark)'s regular political rumor monitor ("The Auditor") reported today that Mayor Brian Stack of Union City, who also is Senator Brian Stack (D-33-Hudson), is actively supporting the redistricting map that the Republican delegation to the Legislative Apportionment Commission has drawn. The reason: the Democrats seem to have drawn a map that moves West New York and Guttenberg, two key parts of Stack's power base, out of the 33rd District, thus forcing Stack to rebuild his base in a hurry in Jersey City.

If true, Stack's earlier fulsome praise of Governor Chris Christie as "the greatest governor in the State's history" now has an explanation. Stack has fallen out with the State Democratic Party and now needs all the help he can get in order to retain his seat. If the Democratic plan goes through, Stack will probably lose "The Line" and might even fail of nomination in the primary.

Not that many people would necessarily find Stack a savory character. He is one of the last of the "double dippers," allowed to hold two elective offices at once. He is also the heir to the Robert Menendez machine in Union City.

All this shows that redistricting by commission is no more pleasant to watch than is redistricting by legislature, and probably less so. This Examiner would personally prefer to contemplate sausage, because though the making of sausage is not a pleasant subject, at least sausage tastes good. In contrast, the last redistricting map shows what redistricting commissions can do. One district, the 21st, looks like a bow tie; another, the 38th, looks like a shoelace. (Click on the "Video" at left; it is actually an embedded copy of the official New Jersey district map.)

Terry has a proposed Constitutional Amendment regarding redistricting rules for the future. Check it out.