Packing up

The redistricting committee has met just three times, but it already is entering its contentious stage with the discussion focusing on a scheme to pack minorities into unified minority districts. The plan, being pitched as a way to increase minority representation, would have the side effect of creating more suburban (read white) districts expected to vote Republican.

Some Latino groups back the plan, others oppose it and the two political parties that control our broken state government are arguing its merits (the GOP, while not endorsing it, certainly is exploring it, while the Democrats are opposed). No one, which should be obvious, is concerned with anything more than narrow parochial interests.

I hope this is not the direction this debate takes, because too much is at stake in the redistricting plan.

• Send me an e-mail.
• Read poetry at The Subterranean.
• Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
• Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

Author: hankkalet

Hank Kalet is a poet and freelance journalist. He is the economic needs reporter for NJ Spotlight, teaches journalism at Rutgers University and writing at Middlesex County College and Brookdale Community College. He writes a semi-monthly column for the Progressive Populist. He is a lifelong fan of the New York Mets and New York Knicks, drinks too much coffee and attends as many Bruce Springsteen concerts as his meager finances will allow. He lives in South Brunswick with his wife Annie. View all posts by hankkalet