In Jersey City United Against the New Ward Map v. Jersey City Ward Commission (A-10/11-24) (089292) (Decided June 18, 2025), the Supreme Court of New Jersey rejected a challenge to a Jersey City ward map enacted in 2022. In a 4-3 decision, the Court found that the map was sufficiently “compact” under the Municipal Ward Law, and that the map did not violate the plaintiffs’ equal protection rights and the New Jersey Civil Rights Act.
Facts of the Case
Jersey City is divided into wards for the purpose of the election or appointment of any municipal officers. Following the release of the 2020 census data, the Ward Commission determined that there was a 59% population deviation between the most populous ward, Ward E, and the least populous ward, Ward D. That deviation far exceeded the maximum population deviation authorized by the Municipal Ward Law (MWL), N.J.S.A. 40:44-9 to -18. The Commission disseminated and later approved a new map in which the population deviation between those wards was 1.8% and the boundaries of all six wards were revised.
Plaintiffs, which included individuals and community organizations opposed to the Commission’s map, filed suits challenging the map. Plaintiffs argued that the new map failed to meet the MWL’s compactness requirement because its wards earned low scores on two mathematical measures of compactness, the Polsby-Popper Measure and the Reock Score.
Second, the Community Organizations alleged that the Commission’s map violated principles of equal protection guaranteed by the New Jersey Constitution, contending that the wards were not sufficiently compact and that the Commission unlawfully divided historic districts and established neighborhoods, thus diminishing the capacity of communities of interest to achieve effective representation for issues such as affordable housing and high-rise development.
The Community Organizations also asserted a claim under the New Jersey Civil Rights Act (NJCRA), predicated upon the alleged violations of the MWL and the State Constitution.
The trial court concluded that the Commission’s ward map created wards that were sufficiently compact under the MWL and granted the Commission’s motion to dismiss plaintiffs’ statutory and constitutional claims.
The Appellate Division reversed the dismissal of plaintiffs’ MWL claims and remanded the matter to the trial court for factfinding as to whether there was a rational basis for the Commission’s determination that the wards defined by its map were sufficiently compact to satisfy the MWL’s requirements. It affirmed the trial court’s determinations of plaintiffs’ equal protection and NJCRA claims.
NJ Supreme Court’s Decision
The New Jersey Supreme Court affirmed in part and reversed in part. “We view the Commission’s map to represent a proper exercise of the substantial discretion the MWL grants to ward commissions to set the boundaries of municipal wards. We do not concur with the Appellate Division’s ruling that additional factfinding is necessary to determine whether the Commission’s map meets N.J.S.A. 40:44-14’s compactness requirement,” Justice Patterson wrote. “Accordingly, we reverse the Appellate Division’s determination with respect to the MWL. We affirm the Appellate Division’s determination that the trial court properly dismissed plaintiffs’ equal protection and NJCRA claims.”
In reaching its decision, the New Jersey Supreme Court first addressed the requirements of the MWL, which charges a commission to “fix and determine the ward boundaries so that each ward is formed of compact and contiguous territory.” The MWL further mandates that “[t]he population of the most populous ward so created shall not differ from the population of the least populous ward so created by more than [ten percent] of the mean population of the wards,” using the census as “the population determinant.”
The Court emphasized that the New Jersey Legislature did not define a “compact” territory for purposes of the MWL, nor did it direct that ward commissions use a mathematical measure of compactness such as the Polsby-Popper Measure or the Reock Score in the determination of ward boundaries, even though they were available when the MWL was enacted.
“The Legislature directed a ward commission to design wards that are compact, but did not prescribe a methodology for that determination or otherwise constrain a ward commission’s discretion,” Justice Anne M. Patterson explained. “If a ward commission decides that such measures may assist it in a determination of ward boundaries, it may elect to use them, but it is not required to do so.”
The New Jersey Supreme Court further found that although the preservation of communities of interest may be relevant to the work of ward commissions, it is not a requirement for determining compactness under the MWL. “There is no authority in the MWL, its legislative history, or our case law for plaintiffs’ argument that when it required wards to be ‘compact,’ the Legislature mandated that the members of a community of interest must vote in the same ward,” Justice Patterson wrote. The Court similarly rejected plaintiffs’ contention that Wards A, D, and F are “bizarrely shaped” and thus violate the MWL.
The New Jersey Supreme Court acknowledged that it was possible to envision a ward map in which any of Jersey City’s wards would be more compact than they appear in the Commission’s redistricting plan. “Our inquiry, however, is not whether a court could design a better map than the map that the Commission devised,” Justice Patterson wrote, but instead to “eliminate the serious population deviation that had developed over the past decade.”
With regard to the Community Organizations’ equal protection claim, the New Jersey Supreme Court agreed with the Appellate Division. “As the Appellate Division observed, the Community Organizations failed to allege that the Commission unconstitutionally treated one class of people differently from the manner in which it treated another class of people,” Justice Patterson wrote. “Instead, they contend that the Commission improperly divided certain established neighborhoods and communities of interest into wards that were not compact. Accordingly, our conclusion that the Commission complied with the MWL’s compactness standard compels rejection of the Community Organizations’ equal protection claim.”
Finally, the Court addressed the Community Organizations’ NJCRA claim. It found that because an NJCRA claim depends on a deprivation “of any substantive…rights, privileges or immunities secured by the Constitution or laws of this State,” pursuant to N.J.S.A. 10:6-2(c), and because the Court found that no constitutional or statutory violation occurred, the Appellate Division was correct in determining that the trial court properly dismissed the Community Organizations’ NJCRA claim.