N.J. Supreme Court rules Jersey City ward map does not violate "compactness" law
The New Jersey Supreme Court on Wednesday quashed a legal challenge that argued Jersey City’s ward map is illegally gerrymandered.
Jersey City Councilman Frank Gilmore and a coalition of more than a dozen neighborhood groups sued the city’s ward commission in 2022, alleging the new ward map failed to be sufficiently compact, which they argue is evidence of attempted gerrymandering. In a 4-3 ruling, the state’s high court rejected those claims, saying the city’s ward boundaries are not “bizarrely shaped” and do not violate a law requiring wards to be compact.
“Today’s ruling comes as no surprise,” the city of Jersey City said in a statement. “It is yet another example in a long string of politically motivated lawsuits and baseless accusations that were aimed at damaging the mayor and this administration.”
A trial court dismissed the coalition’s lawsuit against the new map, but an appeals court later revived the suit and instructed the lower court to further investigate the compactness of the map. Wednesday’s Supreme Court ruling overturns the appeals court decision and reinstates the trial court’s full dismissal of the case.
https://newjerseyglobe.com/judiciary/n-j-supreme-court-rules-jersey-city-ward-map-does-not-violate-compactness-law/