The 1981 New Jersey redistricting and the subsequent court overturning

[Mr.Phips]

The 1981 redistricting story in New Jersey is still one that I dont really understand, mostly because I dont have the 1984 Almanac of American politics that has pictures and stats from the maps drawn in 1981 and used for 1982 only.

What it looks like Dems did originally was to eliminate Millicent Fenwick's Republican seat in the middle of the state and turn Marge Roukema's seat(the 5th) into a squiggly vote sink to pick up pretty much every Republican precinct it could in the Northern half of the state.  They also hurt Harry Hollenbeck in the 9th by removing some suburbs and adding heavily Democratic areas near Jersey City.  This was enough to defeat him(at the hands of Bob Torrecelli). 

From the looks of the remap used in 1984, it somewhat unpacked Roukema's seat, which had the effect of making Joe Minish's seat(the 11th) pretty much impossible for hium to win by including almost all of Morris county and taking away much of Essex.  He lost by double digits in 1984 to Dean Gallo.

What exactly happened here.  Im assuming Republicans sued and a court sided with them and drew a new map?   Could Democrats use this precedent in a state like North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, or Michigan, all states with henious gerrymanders like the 1981 New Jersey one?

[Mr.Phips]

Do you have a digital version of the 1982 map? Sounds interesting but I can't find it on the Internet.

I have the 1983 redrawn version.  I could scan that and then send it to you if you would like. 

[Mr.Phips]

Do you have a digital version of the 1982 map? Sounds interesting but I can't find it on the Internet.

I have the 1983 redrawn version.  I could scan that and then send it to you if you would like. 

Thanks, but I couldn't ask. I am curious about the Dem gerrymander.

The only place where Ive ever seen that 1982 version of the map was in a late 1982 Congressional districts of America book in my college library.  I wish I had made a copy of that page. 

[Mr.Phips]

Thank you!

That was a terrible map.

What's funny is that the worst parts are not particularly partisan. There's no partisan reason for CDs 5 and 12 to loop around each other that way--they're both safely Republican. The spindles in Bergen County also don't seem like they make much partisan difference to a cleaner split, though perhaps that was the only D-favorable way to split Bergen County without splitting a town.

CDs 6 and 7 also seem unnecessarily contorted. Partisan balance has shifted a lot there since the 80s, so maybe that was necessary then to draw two D seats.

I know the 5th was contorted to try and keep Republican areas out of the ninth so that Democrats could pick that up.  The 12th was drawn to pick up Republican areas formerly in the seventh so that they could pick that up(they didnt).  Both the 5th and the 12th also took Republican parts of Morris county(most of the county) out of the 11th so Joe Minish could keep winning there.  Notice that when Morris county was placed entirely in the 11th in the remap, Minish promptly lost big in 1984. 

Everything in this map does have a pretty good political explaination. 

[Mr.Phips]

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Notice that when Morris county was placed entirely in the 11th in the remap, Minish promptly lost big in 1984. 
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which is why it was retarded to get rid of Millie Fenwick's district in 81. Her district if I recall was a Morris county based seat. So what's the point if you extend a dem seat into Morris county, causing him to lose anyways?
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The original plan put most of Morris in the 5th and 12th, which caused them both to be overpopulated beyond the allowable deviation and the 11th to be underpopulated.  Also remember that Republican Tom Kean had won the governorship in 1981 and wanted to extract a new seat for Republicans, forcing a somewhat fairer map from Democrats.