Latinos are nearly 20 percent of New Jersey’s population, but a mere six percent of the state legislature.
This weekend, that playing field may change for Hispanics, or stay the same -- for at least a decade.
That is when an 11-member commission working on redrawing the state’s legislative districts is expected to decide on the new legislative map. The commission is made up of five Democrats, five Republicans, and a neutral tie-breaker, in this case a professor from Rutgers University.
The process, which usually is contentious in New Jersey and elsewhere, is being particularly closely watched by Hispanics, who say that they have been ill-served by redistricting efforts in the past.
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Republicans are said to favor “packing,” supposedly because it keeps some predominantly non-Hispanic white, GOP areas theirs to win.
Republicans won't formally say that they support packing, but they brought in packing expert Benjamin Ginsberg.
Democrats and political watchers say there's no question that packing is being pursued.
"It's a national strategy," said senior political analyst David A. Bositis at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in Washington, D.C., in an interview with The Associated Press earlier this year. "Democrats want to spread out minorities. Republicans want to create white districts, or ones with a small enough minority population that it won't have an effect on the vote."
Read more at Fox News Latino.




