Setting Boundaries: Learn how to raise your voice in the redistricting process
You know your neighborhood better than anyone else
You are the expert on your community and its needs
At this event, we’ll train you on how to tell the people drawing new district lines about your community and its interests in order to optimize your political power.
Every ten years, after the Census, each state must redraw its political districts (or “redistrict”) to make sure that they all have the same number of people – one person, one vote! Henal Patel, Director of the Democracy & Justice Program at the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice has stated, “The purpose of redistricting is to ensure that we have a government that is representative of the people. This is why we must have districts of equal population, districts that keep communities of interest together, and why people of color must not be apportioned in a way that dilutes their ability to elect candidates of their choice. Redistricting is about representation and, in turn, power.”
As we speak, the New Jersey Apportionment and Redistricting Commissions are redrawing our state's political maps, which will have huge impacts our lives for the next decade. Over the next few months, they will be holding public hearings on the new maps. We must make sure they hear from the public, so they do not make these decisions behind closed doors in ways that benefit politicians and not voters.
Next Monday, come find out how to make your voice heard!
About our speaker…
Matt Duffy is the Special Counsel for Redistricting at the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice.
Before joining the Institute, Matt was the Staff Attorney on the Center for Popular Democracy’s national Voting Rights and Democracy campaign, working to expand voting rights and advance structural reforms that put people back in charge of our democracy. Prior to that, while in law school, Matt worked with the Brennan Center for Justice's Democracy Program and served for Justin Barry T. Albin on the Supreme Court of New Jersey. Before law school, Matt spent five years with FSG, a social-impact consultancy, providing strategy and evaluation advice to non-profits, local governments, major philanthropies, and community coalitions.
Matt holds a B.S.F.S. from Georgetown University, and a J.D. from Columbia Law School, where he was a Public Interest Law Fellow and a recipient of the Ruth Bader Ginsburg Prize.