As Tea Party groups across the State begin working on drafting a suggested legislative district map for the Legislative Apportionment Commission to work on, the Bayshore Tea Party Group is already looking ahead to the redrawing of Congressional districts.

Dwight Kehoe, a leading activist with the Bayshore Tea Party Group and the acting chairman of its Redistricting Committee, announced his plans yesterday in this e-mail sent to every Tea Party group across the State. In it he announced the steps that his committee would take, following a formal election of officers to take place tomorrow:

We intend to contact each of the political figures, from both parties, that are directed by that section to appoint redistricting committee members for the state, as well as contacting both state party chairmen. They will be apprised of our intention to be not just witnesses but involved in the upcoming process.

Those figures include the Speaker of the Assembly, the President of the Senate, the minority floor leaders of both houses, and the Republican and Democratic State Chairmen, each of whom will appoint two members each. Kehoe desires that as many of those appointees as possible be Tea Party members chosen from across the State. (Kehoe did not mention that the Commission's chairman will be elected either by the first twelve appointees or, if they cannot agree, by the New Jersey Supreme Court.)

Kehoe also served notice that Tea Party members would attend every public meeting of the Redistricting Commission, as specified in Article II, Section II of the State Constitution. (Paragraph 4 requires the Commission to hold at least three public hearings and to seek public input at those hearings.) Finally, he also announced the acquisition, apparently at considerable expense, of software that his group would use to generate a suggested Congressional district map.

He took pains to point out that, while the State Constitution says that appointments to the Redistricting Commission need to reflect geographical and ethnic diversity, the actual work product of that Commission does not have to reflect any such consideration.

Richard T. Luzzi of The Morristown Tea Party informed his subscribers that the Tea Party ought to settle State legislative redistricting first. In anticipation of that statement, Kehoe pledged that his Committee would render any and all assistance, upon request, to other Tea Party Redistricting Committees that decided to take up legislative reapportionment.

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