In a highly unusual move, the New Jersey Building and Construction Trades Council voted yesterday to revoke their endorsements of two Democratic State Assembly candidates in a North Jersey district and instead will support their Republican opponents.
The union president, Bill Mullen, notified Giovanna Irizzary and Jennifer Marrinan yesterday that his board unanimously withdrew their support and instead endorsed incumbent Christopher DePhillips (R-Wyckoff) and his running mate, Al Barlas, the Essex County Republican chairman.
It’s not immediately clear what triggered the decision of the building trades group to switch sides and dump Irizarry and Marrinan. Mullen did not respond to a message on his cell phone seeking comment.
“Honestly, I don’t know why,” Irizarry told the New Jersey Globe. “I just got the letter to me and my running mate. There was really no explanation. It’s very strange.”
But the move appears to solidly rebuke the wishes of Tom Sullivan, a Bergen County commissioner who is the president and assistant business manager of IBEW Local 164 in Paramus. Sullivan had pushed for endorsements of the Democratic Assembly candidates.
“While we appreciate your support for New Jersey’s hard-working men and women of the union construction and allied trades, we regret to inform you that the NJBCTC executive board met during its annual convention yesterday and voted to endorse your Republican opponents in this year’s election,” Mullen said in a letter to the two Democrats. “Please consider this communication a formal withdrawal of the NJBCTC’s endorsement for the 2023 election.”
Among those who supported the endorsement flip was Steve Sweeney, a former Democratic Senate President and the head of the state’s Ironworkers union.
Losing the building trades endorsement after just 40 days is a devastating blow for the two newcomers, Irizarry and Marrinan, who have already struggled to raise money in the Republican-leaning 40th district.
The first endorsement didn’t appear to hurt DePhillips and Barlas, whose campaign reports filed with the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission already showed strong financial support from the Laborers’, Carpenters, and Bricklayer’s unions. The New Jersey Education Association is also backing DePhillips and Barlas.
State Sen. Kristin Corrado (R-Totowa) had previously won the building trades endorsement, and it had been initially surprising that they had passed over DePhillips, a longtime supporter of the trades unions.
Marrinan did not immediately respond to text messages seeking comment.
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September 10, 2018 -
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