Now that the Monmouth Democrats don’t have a candidate officially running for Senate in the 13th district, maybe they should take a page from the Burlington County Democrats and get a celebrity to run. In case you missed it, former Olympian and former music video star Carl Lewis is running for Senate as a Democrat in the 8th legislative district.
As much as I would like to see Tea Party Democrat Mark Falzon muck up the works by waging a write in campaign for the 13th Democratic Senate nod, the district has numerous celebrity residents that would make terrible candidates but be great for blog traffic.
Bruce Springsteen has recently become a policy wonk. The anti-poverty activist has estates in Rumson and Colts Neck. If he’s registered to vote in Rumson he can run in the 13th. If Bruce is registered to vote in Colts Neck, we’ll know who the third vote is for Democratic Township Committee candidate, our friend Rick Ambrosia, is in November.
Film maker Kevin Smith hails from Highlands.
Drummer and real estate developer Max Weinberg was a trustee of the Monmouth Conservation Foundation before subdividing his Middletown estate.
Is there no liberal hypocrite willing to challenge Kyrillos?
The potty mouth pundit says he supports incumbent Mary Pat Angelini, in large measure due to her pro-abortion and pro-gay marriage positions and that he is considering a challenge to Caroline Casagrande.
In his publisher’s message last week Jacobson said he supported Angelini because she was pro-choice and pro-gay marriage.
MMM has learned that Angelini is pro-life and that she voted against restoring Planned Parenthood’s funding that was cut from the state budget last year. We regret the error and promise to fact check the triCityNews in the future.
The Democrats gave Senator Joe Kyrillos, who turned 51 yesterday, a nice birthday gift.
The party’s nominee for the 13th district senate seat, former Hazlet Mayor Chris Cullen, did not file his nominating petitions according to Politickernj.
The Democrats will now have to spend money a primary where they have no opposition in order to ask voters to write in Cullen.
Maybe Tea Party Democrat Mark Falzon will wage a write in campaign for the nomination. Falzon filed to run against Congressman Frank Pallone in the primary last year only to have his petitions successfully challenged by the Democratic organization.
triCityNews publisher Dan Jacobson told MoreMonmouthMusings that he will not be a candidate for Assembly in 11th district Republican primary because, “it just doesn’t feel right.” “I like both incumbents,” Jacobson said of Assemblywoman Mary Pat Angelini and Caroline Cassagrande, “it wouldn’t be like challenging Sean Kean.”
Jacobson of Asbury Park, a former Democratic member of the Assembly, registered as a Republican last month in preparation of challenging Kean in the Senate primary. The new legislative map moved Kean, of Wall, into the 30th legislative district. Kean will be running for Assembly in the 30th, as Republican Senator Robert Singer, Lakewood, also resides in the new 30th.
Jacobson is angry with Kean over his vote against gay marriage.
The recent redistricting fight made me think about why we have an Assembly and a Senate.
I believe historically it was because Senators represented a particular County rather then a legislative district. The system mirrored the Federal System where States with small populations still get two Senators. The idea was to give rural counties representation on par with more populous counties.
A United States Supreme Court decision in 1964 (Reynolds v. Sims) and a New Jersey Supreme Court decision in 1972 (Jackman v. Bodine) that arrangement was found unconstitutional under the one person one vote rule.
As a result the current legislative arrangement was instituted.
Since the rational for two legislative houses no longer exists why don’t we move to a unicameral or one house legislature? Nebraska only has one legislative house.
This would save a lot of money and make our government more efficient.
I hope my friends in the legislature don’t take this suggestion personally but I think it is something that deserves consideration.
Republican publisher and former Democratic Assemblyman Dan Jacobson says he is mulling running for Assembly in the 11th legislative district GOP primary.
The potty mouth pundit says he supports incumbent Mary Pat Angelini, in large measure due to her pro-abortion and pro-gay marriage positions and that he is considering a challenge to Caroline Casagrande. It’s not that Dan has a problem with Casagrande, like he does with Sean Kean. It’s that he thinks he can cause a transformational change in Trenton if he heads to the Assembly beholden to no one. Free of party ties, donor expectations or special interest loyalty, Dan thinks he can go to Trenton and make government more responsive to the people and less responsive to the special interests. Dan’s goal is laudable. His proposed method is fool hardy, unless he can recruit many many other candidates of a similar mind set and get all of their petitions signed between now and Monday at 4PM. Not going to happen.
But Dan knows that already. He’s lived it already the last time he was in the Assembly 20 years ago. The fun he had driving the leadership crazy is probably more on his mind now than the frustration he experienced. That memory of the fun could be what is driving his consideration of a bid.
What Dan apparently doesn’t realize is that if he files to run for Assembly in the 11th district GOP primary he doesn’t get to choose who he is challenging. He says he is considering a challenge to Casagrande and not Angelini, but the balloting doesn’t work that way.
Assuming Mary Pat, Caroline and Dan are the only candidates in the primary, the election would be a 3 way race for 2 nominations. Dan can say he’s only challenging Caroline all he wants. The truth is that it would be a 3 way race for 2 nominations and Dan could end up knocking off Mary Pat instead of Caroline.
From my point of view Jacobson is a bigger threat in a 3 way to Angelini than he is to Casagrande. Take it from me, the powerful Republican blogger as Dan calls me, if Jacobson runs he is more of a threat to Angelini than he is to Casagrande.
By both perception and reality, Angelini is more liberal than Casagrande. While the very popular Angelini will likely be the top vote getter in the general election, she has some problems with the conservative Republican base. Hardcore conservative voters can be fickle. Many will vote for Casagrande and no one else. Many will vote for Casagrande and Jacobson, just to send a message to Angelini. They won’t mind if Jacobson beats Angelini, figuring they can knock Jacobson off in two years with a real conservative.
Angelini and Casagrande will be bracketed together on the ballot. Assuming Dan is the only primary challenger, his name would be appear in the column immediately to the right of Angelini and Casagrande on the ballot. If the party organization positions Mary Pat and Caroline alphabetically, which would make sense since they have the same seniority, Angelini’s name would appear above Casagrande’s. Jacobson’s name would appear on the ballot right next to Angelini, making it appear on the ballot that Dan is running against Angelini. Even though the instructions will say “Vote for Two,” many uninformed voters will think they have to choose between Angelini and Jacobson before voting for Casagrande who will appear to be unchallenged. Some will chose Jacobson and then vote for Casagrande.
Just some food for thought for Dan to include in his mulling this weekend.
“The Democrats created this district so that Republicans would spend resources fighting each other while they sit back and get ready for the general election and it looks as like that is going to happen.” So said Ocean County GOP Chairman George Gilmore about the new 30th legislative district in an interview with MMM early yesterday afternoon.
Within hours what had seemed to be a certain primary between Senators Sean Kean and Robert Singer was apparently avoided. “Sean is talking to Singer,” said Monmouth GOP Chairman Joe Oxley, “There will be no war between the Ocean and Monmouth Republican organizations. Ocean and Monmouth were key counties in delivering a victory to Governor Christie and we will be working together to deliver Republican gains in the legislature.”
Kean later told the Asbury Park Press that he was uncertain about challenging Singer in the primary. Singer told the APP that should he retire, that Kean would face an Senate candidate from Lakewood.
With both Senators backing off their firm positions to run, it appears that cooler heads will prevail as a slate is chosen with an eye towards victory in November.
The new 12th district will not be such a heavy lift. “With three counties, Middlesex, Monmouth and Ocean, each having roughly 1/3 of the population of the district it would seem that each county should have a representative in the legislature,” said Gilmore. Oxley concurred.
Middlesex County Chairman Sam Thompson, Old Bridge, is an incumbent Assemblyman from the new 12th district. He has been angling to get the senate nod, touting the fact that he would be the only GOP Senator from Middlesex County and that his senatorial courtesy would give the Christie administration a new bargaining chip in dealing with the Democrats. GOP sources in the legislature and the administration are divided over the benefit of Thompson having sentatorial courtesy so long as there is a Republican governor. “The Senate seems to be slipping away from Sam,” said one senior Republican close to the process.
Oxley does not consider Manalapan Mayor Andrew Lucas’ primary bid in the new 12th to be a serious undertaking. “I don’t know who is giving Andrew his political advice,” said Oxley, “this is not fun and games, it is serious business.” Oxley was referring to Lucas’ comment on MMMthat a legislative primary against Freeholder Director Rob Clifton would be fun.
If Clifton is awarded “the line” in Middlesex, Monmouth and Ocean, a Lucas primary victory would appear to be unlikely even if he runs a competitive race in his Western Monmouth base.
Manalapan Mayor Andrew Lucas will be a candidate for the state legislature in the GOP primary from the new 12th district.
Lucas, who will make a formal announcement tomorrow, said he would defer to Assembly incumbents Sam Thompson and Ronald Dancer should either seek the vacant Senate seat. In such case Lucas will run for Assembly. Should neither incumbent Assemblyman run for Senate, Lucas will seek that seat.
Lucas said that he will not compete with Freeholder Director Rob Clifton for the Monmouth GOP line with the screening committee, but would take the race to a primary.
“I think this will be fun and reinvigorate the western portion of the Monmouth GOP,” said the Mayor.
The stakes are apparently very high as the Legislative Reapportionment Commission works almost around the clock this week to settle on a map that could determine the partisan control of the New Jersey State Legislature for the next 10 years.
The 5 Democrats and 5 Republicans on the commission are working to convince the 11th “Independent” member or the commission, Dr. Alan Rosenthal, PhD of Rutgers to choose their proposed map. Rosenthal is said to be trying to either forge a compromise map or will choose one. Politickernj is reporting that Rosenthal is using the Democratic map as his foundation.
But who are the stakes high for?
Ultimately the stakes are high for all New Jersey residents, as what is decided this week will inevitably impact the quality of all of our lives over the next decade. But are most New Jersey residents even paying attention?
Are the commissioners in New Brunswick working so hard this week for the good of the people of the State, or are they fighting for power, control and the money that comes along with it. Certainly there are commissioners that have pure motives. I’d like to think that they are Republicans. Surely my Democratic readers hope the same of their side.
The Bayshore Tea Party Group has proposed a map that meets all the requirements set out in the Constitution. Turns out that, as a side benefit that proposed map also increases the competitiveness of the districts, and likely would increase minority representation, according to Monmouth University pollster Patrick Murray’s analysis of the map.
So why are they working so hard in New Brunswick? Why can’t both sides and Rosenthal just embrace the BTPG’s Constitutional “People’s Map?”
It turns out that there are “principles” not found in the State or U.S Constitutions driving the efforts. Perhaps I should say principals rather than principles. The principle principals are incumbents. The districts belong to them. The office’s they hold are theirs, not the people’s. That’s how it is in practice.
Even Rosenthal buys into incumbent protection. He puts it in noble sounding academic jargon, espousing the “continuity of representation” and the value of crafting a map that is “minimally disruptive.”
Continuous for who? Minimally disruptive to who? Rosenthal’s rhetoric and scholarly writings make it sound as if “continuity of representation” and “minimal disruption” are of value to the electorate. But are they?
It seems to me that most people are oblivious to what legislative districts they live in and relatively few know who their representatives are.
I don’t have empiracle data to back that hunch up, so I called Patrick Murray. He said that he is unaware of recent polling data of residents awareness of their districts or their legislators, but that he shares my hunch.
So I took to the streets. Main Street in Belford actually, to find some data. This is what I found:
Watch the video. Some of it is pretty funny. While not as scientific as one of Murray’s polls, I doubt the results would change with a larger statistical sample and with interviews throughout the state. Decades of miserably low turnout in legislative elections are statistically significant enough to conclude that most people are not paying attention to the legislature, and don’t know who their legislators are.
Maybe a Constitutional, non-gerrymandered map would change that. Maybe people would pay attention and vote if their vote mattered.
Sure, I feel for my friends in the legislature who would be maximally disrupted by the adoption of the BTPG’s map. But the offices they hold and the districts they represent don’t belong to them.
There won’t be real change in Trenton, the city won’t be turned upside down, unless there is a legislative map adopted that does not take into account the residency of incumbents.
The Republicans on the commission should embrace the BTPG’s map and invite Rosenthal to join them.
New Jersey will have a legislature controlled by the Democratic party for another ten years, according to Monmouth University pollster Patrick Murray.
In a column posted on Politickernjand on his own blog Murray dissects the tea leaves of that Alan Rosenthal, the tie breaking 11th member of redistricting commission, revealed in his public statements about the standards that will be used to determine the new legislative map. Murray concludes that the Rosenthal approved map will result in 22 “safe” Democratic districts and 18 “safe” Republican districts.
Murray says that Rosenthal values “continuity of representation” ….that incumbents should be drawn into districts where the majority of voters are already represented by them…over “competitiveness” and that as a result the new map will have a “deminis” impact on the status quo.
Murray also implied that the Democrats have outmaneuvered the Republican in there redistricting preparation. He says Democrats organized themselves to negotiate with the 11th members of the commission whereas the Republicans organized themselves to challenge the new map in court, where they will likely lose.
Murray’s margin of error is +/- 100% of Rosenthal’s consistency with his historical body of work.
