Wallace was the ‘right person’ to be tiebreaker, Murphy says

Just under two weeks after New Jersey Congressional Redistricting Commission tiebreaker John Wallace selected a Democratic-proposed congressional map for the next decade – and controversially justified doing so by noting that the Republican map had been chosen ten years ago – Gov. Phil Murphy said today that Wallace was nevertheless a good choice for the job.

“No comment specifically on the map [that was chosen], other than I’ve got unlimited regard for Justice Wallace,” Murphy said. “I think he was the right person to be in that seat, and I’m very gratified that Chief Justice [Stuart] Rabner put him in there. I think the commissioners each did an outstanding job.”

Wallace, a former Supreme Court justice who works for a Democratic-affiliated South Jersey law firm, was chosen for the commission by the Supreme Court in August after the six Democratic and six Republican members of the redistricting commission could not collectively agree on a tiebreaking member. Wallace had been the Democrats’ choice.

But throughout the process, Wallace reportedly showed minimal proficiency in New Jersey political geography, and needed assistance understanding what the implications of any given proposal were. Ultimately, Democrats proposed a map that would shore up three of their party’s four vulnerable incumbents while Republicans drew one that would largely maintain the state’s competitive seats; Wallace went with the former.

“Both delegations adequately applied our standards to their map,” Wallace said of his choice. “In the end, I decided to vote for the Democratic map simply because the last redistricting map was drawn by the Republicans.”

A week after the map was chosen, Republicans filed a lawsuit arguing that the selection process was not fair and insisting that the Supreme Court either affirm the map or order Wallace to reconsider.

Wallace “did not engage in any negotiations with the Republican or Democratic delegations as part of any of these public hearings, nor did any negotiations or discussions take place in private during the time of the public hearings,” the lawsuit alleges.