NEW BRUNSWICK – Wielding a blown-up laminated copy of their redistricting map, members of the Bayshore Tea Party and their friends descended on the Heldrich Hotel this evening to try to hand-deliver their legislative vision for the state into the hands of bipartisan power.
“What you have up there is a room where the people in power are trying to conserve their power,” said Peter Carroll of the Raritan Valley Tea Party, holding a sign among a small but at that point growing number of Tea Party supporters.
Bayshore Tea Party Redistricting Committee Chairman Sean Spinello said his map corrects “several blatant and more subtle unconstitutional instances of partisan gerrymandering” on the existing map.
According to a release issued by the group this morning, the changes include:
- Number of districts that are wholly within one county = 27 vs. current map = 16
- Number of districts split between 3 counties = 0 vs. current map = 9
- Number of districts split between 4 counties = 0 vs. current map = 2
- Number of counties divided additionally to meet the requirements of population equality, contiguousness, and compactness = 3 counties (1 extra split each, total of 3 additional splits) vs. current map = 15 counties (total of 24 additional splits due to counties with more than one extra split).
- The group wanted to give a copy of its map to tiebreaking 11th-member Prof. Alan Rosenthal for consideration. A copy of the map already hangs in the makeshift Heldrich Hotel office of the GOP, along with the minority coaltion and other maps.
