The 2001 redistricting was billed as nonpartisan but was very much a Republican-favoring gerrymander.
Republican-favoring gerrymander? That may be your opinion, but NJ Democrats gladly signed off on the plan.
The redistricting was billed as "incumbent protection," not nonpartisan. But indeed the lines were drawn in a nonpartisan way: Democrats recognized that they had no shot of defeating Saxton, LoBiondo, Garrett/Roukema, Smith, or Frelinghuysen, so making those districts fractionally more Republican was a no-brainer. And so too for Republicans was it a no-brainer to trade those few points to make Andrews and Pallone safer, as well as shoring up NJ-8 and NJ-9 for the Democrats.
The real wheeling and dealing was that Democrats happily traded away their shot at defeating the highly vulnerable Ferguson in 2002 to make sure Republicans didn't have a shot at the highly vulnerable Holt in 2002. Both were marquee races in 2000.
And it worked just as planned. Neither party could field a solid nominee in their respective districts, and the two incumbents cruised. Democrats could not have envisioned such a spectacular "perfect storm" environment as they had in 2006.
The only "gerrymander" in New Jersey were the State Legislative lines. Unlike the congressional lines, that was *not* a bipartisan agreement: the GOP and Democrats could not agree on a plan, so an "independent observer" had to be called in; he ultimately chose a plan virtually identical to the Democrats' agreesive lines over the more conservative Republican lines (or a fairer third set).
This had an effect of defeating a number of Republican incumbents a year before the election even happened, and all but guaranteed enough pickups for Democratic control of the Assembly without having to spend a dime.
