Hi, everyone. This time, I went further outside my comfort zone and redistricted my home of New Jersey as a commission might do it. New Jersey has a bipartisan redistricting commission that usually ends up in an incumbent protection map. However, this year New Jersey is losing a seat and Republican Congressman Leonard Lance is likely the one to go.
New Jersey's commission is composed of 6 Democrats, 6 Republicans, and almost always requires a court-appointed tiebreaker. All 12 partisan commissioners are chosen by the state party so it's much more partisan than the commission in California. For this round, the tiebreaker is John Farmer, Jr. He was the Attorney-General under former Governor Christine Whitman and was legal counsel to Alan Rosenthal when Rosenthal served as the tiebreaker during state legislative redistricting this year. Rosenthal opted out for this round because he probably got bullied by the Republicans and by Christie personally to accept their map (which would give Republicans an even chance of taking the legislature). He instead chose the Democrats' map, and Christie cut funding to his Rutgers fellowship project. It's a shame since Rosenthal is one of the greatest minds of redistricting out there.
My hunch tells me the Republicans will try for a 6 Dem-6 GOP split in their proposed map, but I don't think that would fly. It doesn't reflect New Jersey consistently Democratic lean on the federal scale as well as mine does.
Anywho, I shall draw what the commission could end up drawing, a 7 Dem-5 GOP (possibly even 7 Dem-4 GOP-1 Tossup) map. I protected Pallone's district and removed Lance's disritct. NJ-13 is the new NJ-07. I also fixed one of the problems with the current map. On the current map, Congressman Albio Sires' district is merely plurality Hispanic, a legal grey area but not strictly VRA-compliant. I have now made it majority Hispanic. Finally, all of my districts deviate from ideal population by no greater than double digits.
See my work below the fold.