To a legislator, the difference between being in the majority and being in the minority is as consequential as the difference between being in office and being out of office. That is why my political life was transformed in November 1985 when, as a…
By Tommy DeSeno
I think I need a political intervention. I’m apathetic. I can’t find a reason to vote next year in the midterm congressional races. Upon self-reflection I can’t decide if I’m enlightened or jaded. Or both. I just know I no longer care to cast a ballot.
I grew up schooled with the same civic lessons as the rest of America. Served to me in full measure was that good government is the result of the patriotic duty of voting and I swallowed it all.
I have been voting for more than 30 years and don’t recall having ever missed an opportunity to vote for a congressman.
Yet I’ve come to realize that I’ve been denied the opportunity to ever vote for a congressman.
Like elsewhere, the year after the census New Jersey gets redistricted. Some connected political sorts from both parties negotiate in a hotel and as best I can tell, decide how the parties will split the state’s congressional delegation for the next 10 years. Following that, the rest of us dutifully vote and pretend like it matters, doing nothing more than adding a façade of legitimacy to the literal backroom deal of the redistricting committee.
I lived for many years in what is now New Jersey’s 6th Congressional District (the number of the district has changed but the same suspect remains at-large).
The Congressman in NJ 6 is Democrat Frank Pallone, Jr. Pallone serves many Monmouth County residents. On the County level, Monmouth has been overwhelmingly a Republican county for decades. Pallone represents 28 Monmouth County towns and 9 from Middlesex County. However, Frank’s district has in it tentacles that grab certain neighborhoods (not even whole towns) from two other counties that are Democrat strongholds (and you can guess why).
In doing so the 6th district lumps together sleepy little shore towns in one county with industrial settings in another, creating a varied constituency where the people have little in common.
Posted: July 29th, 2013 | Author: admin | Filed under: Congress, Congressional Redistricting, Tommy DeSeno | Tags: Congressional Redistricting, gerrymandering, Tommy DeSeno | 6 Comments »© Copyright 2024 | MoreMonmouthMusings | All Rights Reserved