Clean Water Action Opposes New Jersey Redistricting: Plan Undermines Voting Rights and Harms Communities of Color

For Immediate Release: December 13, 2018

Trenton, NJ–¬¬Today, Clean Water Action joined advocates from more than 40 statewide organizations at a press conference and public hearing to demand a fair redistricting process and fair maps for New Jersey. The coalition is calling on the NJ Legislature to stop New Jersey’s redistricting plan, a measure that would lay the foundation for the extreme gerrymandering of New Jersey’s 40 legislative districts.

The measure is embodied in three concurrent resolutions SCR-43, SCR-152, and ACR-205, scheduled for required public hearings today in separate Senate and Assembly committees. The leaders of the Senate and Assembly plan to call for votes in their houses on December 17, the last session scheduled before the end of the year.

Clean Water Action opposes New Jersey’s redistricting plan and issued the following statement by Amy Goldsmith, Clean Water Action state director:

“This is not what democracy is supposed to look like. The environment and the public are best served by open, independent, transparent, fair elections and government. This proposed constitutional amendment fails all of the above. Worst, it makes gerrymandering more likely and, whether it’s done by Democrats or Republicans, that’s wrong and voters don’t like it.

Voters are mobilizing in unprecedented numbers, they’re not going to change their mind and they will remember. We need legislators to stop this effort and go back to what the voters hired them to do — protect public health and the environment, advance a green and fair economy that lifts all boats, and be fiscally responsible,” stated Amy Goldsmith, NJ State Director with Clean Water Action, which has been helping good government groups like the NJ League of Women Voters lead the opposition to SCR43/SCR152/ACR60/ACR205.”

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Clean Water Action has more than 150,000 members statewide in New Jersey and is the nation’s largest grassroots group focused on water, energy and environmental health. Since our founding during the campaign to pass the landmark Clean Water Act in 1972, Clean Water Action has worked to win strong health and environmental protections by bringing issue expertise, solution-oriented thinking and people power to the table. We will protect clean water in the face of attacks from a polluter friendly Administration and Congress. www.cleanwater.org/nj