A State Commission of Investigation probe of New Jersey’s congressional redistricting process found “no lack of fairness in the process,” but suggested enhanced transparency and standardization when the panel draws new House districts after the 2030 Census.
Among the recommendations is that the New Jersey Legislature codify the criteria for drawing House districts into state law, including a mandate that Democrats and Republicans share maps so that each side may comment before a vote.
The panel found no evidence that Sam Wang, the head of the Princeton Gerrymandering Project, manipulated data while serving as a paid advisor to the commission’s independent tiebreaker, former Supreme Court Justice John E. Wallace, Jr.
“The allegations regarding data manipulation were vehemently denied by all of the Princeton Gerrymandering Project employees, including Wang, who had worked on the New Jersey redistricting project and had appeared before the SCI under oath,” the report said.
One Princeton Gerrymandering Project staffer testified that “system that we use for New Jersey was the same system we used for every other state that we worked in, and received significant public scrutiny of the analysis we provided and nobody made allegations that the data was inaccurate, like, that just wasn’t a concern.”
Allegations reported by the New Jersey Globe that staffers from the Princeton Gerrymandering Project quietly gave Democrats some valuable feedback that would ultimately play into their final map submission: that Republicans were doing a good job limiting the splitting of towns and municipalities and that Democrats needed to do better.
“I got the sense that they really wanted us to win,” said a Democrat who was part of the Cherry Hill meetings. “The only reason I’m not mad is because we won.”
The SCI wants future mapmakers to address the use of consultants.
“New Jersey’s congressional redistricting commission lacks clear legal guidance for the retention and use of outside consultants called on to assist in the redistricting process, a gap that is contributing to conflict and mistrust in its work,” the SCI found.
Wallace has not commented on the process he used to pick his team, including Wang.
The retired jurist had faced considerable criticism for comments he made at the time he voted in support of the Democratic map.
“In summary, both delegations aptly applied our standards to their map. In the end, I decided to vote for the Democratic map simply because in the last Redistricting map, it was drawn by the Republicans,” Wallace stated. “Thus, I conclude that fairness dictates that the Democrats have the opportunity to have their map used for the next Redistricting cycle.”
He later walked that back after the Supreme Court ordered him to amplify his reasons.
The SCI found that New Jersey’s system of an independent commission to draw congressional districts mostly works but needs reforms to make it less susceptible to allegations that it was manipulated for political purposes.
“Collectively, these findings demonstrate that New Jersey’s system for congressional redistricting – an undertaking that cost state taxpayers $1.4 million in the last cycle – has ample room for improvement,” the report stated.
An algorithm used by the Princeton Gerrymandering Project to determine the partisan fairness of New Jersey congressional districts wasn’t made public because the group says their redistricting analysis formula is proprietary.
Then-Senate Minority Leader Steve Oroho asked for an investigation in 2022 following allegations that Wang fudged data. Wallace said in court filings that he relied on Wang’s data to pick the Democratic map in New Jersey’s congressional redistricting process.
“After reviewing hundreds of pages of documentary evidence and receiving sworn testimony from more than a dozen individuals directly involved in the state’s latest redistricting cycle, the SCI found no merit to the unspecified claims of data manipulation,” the commission said in a statement. “However, there were circumstances where the process lacked transparency, uniformity, and statutory guidance in specific areas needed to ensure the reliable operation of the commission, its duties, and the mapmaking responsibilities assigned to it.”
SCI investigators “reviewed revisions made to the penultimate draft of the PGP report prepared for Chair Wallace to assist him in evaluating the final maps proposed by the two delegations,” the report noted.
“Although modifications were then made throughout the document and incorporated into the final report, the changes made during the final editing phase were not substantive and did not change any data appearing in prior versions,” the report noted. “The report also did not appear to reflect any bias or favoritism toward one partisan group or the other.”
The SCI report did not address one potential conflict: that top funders to the Princeton Gerrymandering Project are major donors to Democratic candidates and committees, including contributors to four New Jersey Democratic House members who represent competitive districts and were huge stakeholders in the redistricting process.
A report by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School flagged the Wallace map as a partisan gerrymander, and FiveThirtyEight’s Nathaniel Rakich labeled the new congressional map as having a “strong pro-Democratic bias.”
In the future, the SCI wants the legislature to spell out the duties of the commission chair statutorily, and for final maps created by two parties be posted online before the vote for the public to review.
The role and authority of the court-selected tiebreaker remains unclear, the SCI said.
“The SCI found a lack of specificity regarding the powers of the commission chair prevented Wallace from taking actions that could have been beneficial to the panel’s work in developing the best voting map for New Jersey, such as requiring the delegations to meet jointly and to share their various map proposals with each other before those maps were presented to Wallace,” the report added.
Wallace told the SCI he was “reluctant to compel the delegates to engage in those activities absent legal guidance.”
“There also was resistance to those efforts from the chairs of the Democratic and Republican delegations, who had not agreed to share maps. There was also a lack of clarity among the parties regarding whether Wallace had the power to compel them to do so,” the final report stated.
The SCI wants future commissions to do a better job on making data more transparent.
“Considering that modern mapmaking work has evolved into a highly technical digitized endeavor requiring specialized data analysis and expertise, it is now essential that the commission chair, as well as the two delegations, hire professional firms to assist them in the redistricting process,” the report said. “There are no regulations governing the hiring, duties, management and oversight of outside consultants, which currently provide essential assistance in redistricting.”
In the future, the SCI wants the state to create guidelines to “clearly outline the hiring parameters, scope of responsibilities and other relevant information for data consultants utilized during redistricting.”
“Of particular importance is the need for such consultants to disclose the methodologies, including the data sets, standards and other metrics used as part of the firm’s analytical assessment of voting maps,” the report noted.
“To further promote transparency and agreement on the statistical data that is analyzed and used to create voting districts, the Legislature and Governor should also consider assigning a New Jersey public institution to compile such demographic, election and other relevant records on an ongoing basis in preparation for the next redistricting cycle,” the SCI said in its recommendations.
They also ask for more communications with the public.
“While the commission held 10 public hearings across the state – more than tripling its constitutional requirement – during the early stages of the redistricting process, no other effort to inform the public occurred after that point,” the report said.
The SCI found that the bipartisan panel that drew New Jersey’s legislative map got it right when they posted each party’s proposed map in advance.
“To encourage public participation in the congressional redistricting process and potentially obtain valuable feedback, the commission should post any final maps online at least five days prior to the panel’s final vote,” the SCI report stated.
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