Lawrence Township Remains in 15th Legislative District

Officials throughout New Jersey are still trying to assess the ramifications of this weekend's .

While Lawrence Township remains in the 15th District, the decision to support the so-called Democratic map moves Princeton Township and Borough from the 15th District and South Brunswick from the 14th to a newly configured 16th District with towns from Somerset and Hunterdon counties.  

The 16th now includes 15 municipalities in four counties, with South Brunswick (43,417) and Hillsborough in Somerset County (38,303) the most populous towns in the district.  Also included are the Princetons in Mercer, Branchburg, Manville, Millstone, Montgomery, Rocky Hill and Somerville in Somerset County and Delaware, Flemington, Raritan, Readington and Stockton in Hunterdon.

"This is certainly a strange configuration," said South Brunswick Mayor Frank Gambatese.  "We're now the only town from Middlesex County in this district. With four different counties now represented, it's going to make things difficult for the Assembly and Senate representatives."

Every 10 years, following the release of new population data from the U.S. Census, the state must redraw the boundaries of the districts to keep the population approximately equal.

In New Jersey, the decision is voted on by a commission of five Democrats and five Republicans. The commission was unable to reach a consensus on a new map, which led a judge to order the addition of an 11th, non-partisan member to the commission, Rutgers public policy Professor Alan Rosenthal.

After weeks of hearings, Rosenthal decided on Saturday to vote in favor of the map proposed by Democrats.  

In addition to Lawrence, five other Mercer County municipalities--Ewing, Hopewell Borough and Township, Pennington and Trenton--remain untouched in the 15th District. While the 15th District has lost Princeton Borough and Princeton Township, it gains West Windsor (previously in the 14th) and three Hunterdon County municipalities--East and West Amwell and Lambertville, all of which were previously in the 23rd District.

The 16th District is represented by state Sen. Christopher "Kip" Bateman (R-Somerset), and Assembly members Peter Biondi (R-Somerset) and Denise Coyle (R-Somerset).  Coyle's hometown of Bernards was moved into the 21st District,  where she will be one of three incumbent Republicans for two Assembly seats, though she said late Monday she intends to move to a town in the new 16th District.

The movement of Princeton into the 16th also means that Reed Gusciora, a Princeton Democrat who currently represents the 15th District, will have to decide whether to run for an Assembly seat in the new district. Gusciora and Biondi are incumbents, but the district is considered likely to vote Republican.

Gusciora told Patch on Monday that he plans to move from Princeton–his home since 1989–to Trenton in time to run for reelection with his longtime running mates, Assemblywoman Bonnie Watson-Coleman of Ewing and state Sen. Shirley K. Turner of Lawrence.

“I think the reality is it’s going to be difficult for a Democrat to win in the 16th,” Gusciora said.

With the addition of the historically Democratic-voting South Brunswick and the Princetons, local officials said the new district configuration has the potential to create more competitive balance to what had previously been a Republican dominated district.

"They really cut up our county," Bateman said.  "It's terrible.  They took nine towns away from Pete (Biondi) and I and we still hold seven towns.

"It's going to be a much more competitive district.  We're going to have to work very hard in those (democratic-leaning) towns to get our message across.  If we can't win them, we have to try to hold our position elsewhere.  We will do what we have to to get our message across."

The numbers bear out the potentially competitive nature of the district. A Patch analysis of the last three Assembly races show that Republicans would have won two Assembly seats in a newly configured 16th in 2005 and 2009 – years when gubernatorial candidates topped the ballot and turnout was high. Democrats would have won narrowly in 2007, a year when turnout was much lower.

Princeton Local Editor Greta Cuyler contributed to this report.