Paul Aronsohn, former disability ombudsman, is Kim’s new state director

Paul Aronsohn, a disability rights advocate who has held roles in local, state, and federal government, is Senator Andy Kim’s new state director.

In the early days of former Gov. Phil Murphy’s administration, Aronsohn was named as New Jersey’s first-ever Ombudsman for Individuals with Intellectual or Developmental Disabilities and Their Families, a role focused on helping New Jerseyans with disabilities access services and support. Under President Joe Biden, Aronsohn served on the President’s Committee for People with Intellectual Disabilities.

Aronsohn replaces Sue Altman, who stepped down from the state director position after just over a year in order to run for an open New Jersey House seat. Altman, a former state director of the progressive Working Families Party, had been among the first hires Kim announced upon winning his Senate seat in 2024.

“I’ve asked [Paul] to serve as my State Director because I want to build something different,” Kim said in a statement. “I want to build the strongest constituent service operation in the country and a team that will focus on solving problems for Jersey families, not for the powerful and well-connected.”

Prior to joining state government in 2018, Aronsohn was a local elected official in Ridgewood, serving as the village’s mayor from 2012 to 2016 and as a councilman for several years before that. He was the Democratic nominee for Congress against Rep. Scott Garrett (R-Wantage) in 2006, and spent his early career working for Gov. Jim McGreevey, President Bill Clinton, and the U.S. State Department. He also worked for eight years as a public affairs executive at Pfizer.

Aronsohn, 59, said that his three siblings all lived with “a different range of disabilities,” prompting him to become involved in disability advocacy.

His new role makes him the highest-ranking staffer in Kim’s state office, and his background dovetails with Kim’s recent focus on caregiving. Kim’s father was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s last year, a topic to which he devoted his maiden Senate speech and much of his recent legislative work.

“I’ve always believed in the idea that you can better judge the character of a society by how it treats the vulnerable and struggling among us rather than those who are most successful and advantaged,” Kim said. “In Paul, I met someone who isn’t interested in the theater of politics but is instead driven by a deeply personal mission of public service that is too rare these days.”