Of course, New Jersey has a redistricting commission. But it is a bipartisan one, not a nonpartisan one, resulting in oddly-shaped seats that protect incumbents, not so much Communities of Interest. A result of that is this:
I marked the residencies of the NJ congressmen in black (nobody lives in the Southern part that's cut off, but that is not very densely populated anyway).
As you can see, the blue area, which has a population large enough for holding 2.5 compact congressional seats, doesn't have any kind of local Congressional representation. That is despite containing a major city and one of the wealthiest counties in the US (which you'd expect to be filled with over-achievers and potential Congressmen).
So let's look at what we have here. Most of the jagged borders are to keep townships intact.
NJ-01
NJ-1 now takes in all of Camden County. Camden has a population of over 500,000, so it seems a no-brainer that a Congressional District should be centered on it. The remaining part of the district is filled up with other parts of the Philly suburbs which are very similar to most of Camden.
Obama won this seat 64.3-35.7 vs. McCain in 2008, and Bob Andrews should be plenty happy with it, as it closely resembles his old seat.
NJ-02
This is, as before, a swing seat, but as comfortably as Congressman LoBiondo (R) used to hang on here in the D waves of 2006 and 2008 we're not picking it up anytime soon, and the guy isn't that old. The difference is, it loses its portions of Burlington and Camden counties, and Gloucester County is split slightly differently. But that just moves the seat half a percent to the left. 55-45% Obama.
NJ-03
Now this is where things get interesting. Heavily Republican Ocean County with its population of 570,000 is currently marginalized as it's split in the middle to help create two Republican seats. But neither seat elects an Ocean County Republican and in neither seat is Ocean County the majority.
The seat adds in Burlington County territory to get to target population.
The primary is tilted in favor of Rep. Runyan over Rep. Smith, both because he lives in the seat and Smith doesn't, and because he represents 58% of the seat over Smith' 41%. In the General Election, the seat is uncompetitive at 56-44% McCain.
But of course... nobody says that an Ocean County Republican couldn't foil the plans of both officeholders.
NJ-04
As the current NJ-13 doesn't exist anymore and the current NJ-04 is exterminated on my map, I decided to term Albio Sires' territory NJ-4. It is no Hispanic majority seat at 45% White VAP, 37% Hispanic VAP, and that may be controversial, but it's definitely legal, as there is no Hispanic community large enough to fill a VRA seat (and Gingles applies to the shape of the minority community too), and since the citizenship rates of New Jersey Hispanics are insanely low, a 53-54% Hispanic VAP seat wouldn't effectively be able to elect a minority candidate of choice anyway if Whites decided to vote against that candidate.
But enough of the arcane VRA stuff, the seat is safe at D+10, and as Sires retains half of his constituents that should give him enough of a basis to survive any primary challenge.
As for the shape of the district, it's wrapping around the Northern part of the Black VRA seat, with a definite power base in West Essex, which would probably elect an Anglo Democrat if Sires retires.
NJ-05
This seat sits completely in the area I mentioned in the beginning of the diary as being underrepresented. It is Safe D at D+10, and would probably see a primary between Congressman Frank Pallone and a local Democrat, as Pallone just represents a third of the seat right now, and he would be a definite outsider to the community here.
It is also majority-minority at 45% White VAP, 25% Hispanic, 17% Asian, 11% Black.
NJ-06
Monmouth County and its 630,000 people also deserve to be center of a Congressional District. To get up to target, it adds a few people in Middlesex. That unfortunately screws over Congressman Pallone, whose seat is now 51.9% McCain.
NJ-07
This is a seat that combines mostly rural/suburban areas in NW New Jersey.
Matches up Congressmen Lance and Garrett (both R) with a definite edge for Lance, as he already represents much of Somerset County (the rich, right now unrepresented county I mentioned above), so the areas of Somerset who are currently denizens of Freylinghuysen's and Holt's districts should know him better than Garrett.
Somerset County will definitely be better represented here, as it makes up almost half of the seat's population.
54.3% McCain, so safe R.
NJ-08
First of all, the weird attached precincts in Passaic County are just to be able to keep Wanaque Township completely in NJ-7, not for partisan reasons.
Otherwise, it's attaching the urban part of Passaic County (does anybody know why Passaic has this weird shape that combines rural areas with urban areas in two parts that look to me as if they'd be better off separately?) to Northern Bergen County, which produces a D+2 swing seat (55% Obama).
Congressman Pascrell of Paterson would presumably be the Democratic nominee here, even though he's currently used to a D+10 seat. I don't know who the Republicans would run--- there's certainly a chance Garrett would try to avoid the primary vs. Lance and run here instead, which would be a marquee race. Of course Garrett also currently represents an R+7, so they'd both be people used to playing to their bases running in a swing seat.
NJ-9
This seat takes up the remaining part of Bergen County, and then adds in a small arm into Hudson County. The purpose of that is to keep a few white liberal voters away from Sires' seat to make the election of a Hispanic there more likely, it doesn't change the partisan balance of either seat all that much.
61% Obama, Safe D for Rothman.
NJ-10
This is the most compact black majority seat I could draw. 51.2% Black VAP, safe D obviously for Payne.
NJ-11
This seat consists of heavily Republican Morris County for the most part. It adds in a few Democratic areas in western Union County, but not enough to overwhelm the Republicans. The weird arm into Passaic is because I thought it had to add in a bit more population and it would be preferable to add in a complete township (Wanaque) than parts of townships along the border.
51.1% McCain.
NJ-12
Rush Holt's seat compacts a lot by losing the odd Monmouth, Somerset and Hunterdon County parts and retracts a bit from Middlesex (but keeping most of New Brunswick which is definitely still in the same CoI as non-Trenton Mercer County).
In exchange he gets all of Mercer and huge parts of Burlington County.
65% Obama, and although he represents just 45% of this seat right now the other constituents come from Smith's and Runyan's seats, who would both be insane to run here.
Thoughts?
IMO this is a 6D-4R-2Swing seat map with one swing seat (LoBiondo) safe R currently and one (Pascrell) Lean D, so most likely this produces a 7-5 map in 2012.