Imagine this: America wakes up the morning after the 2024 election to find that Democrats have secured a precarious 218-217 majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.
If one of the two House members likely to run for governor next year, Mikie Sherrill (D-Montclair) or Josh Gottheimer (D-Wyckoff), were to win, it could quickly terminate the Democratic majority and bring the people’s house to a standstill until a new election is held – perhaps five months later.
If Donald Trump were to win the presidency, a 218-217 Republican majority could preclude Jeff Van Drew (R-Dennis) from a cabinet post.
The death of Rep. Donald Payne, Jr. (D-Newark) on Wednesday underscores the potential importance of a single House seat in a Congress where control is so slim that a single vote matters.
At 65, Payne was a relatively young congressman by New Jersey standards: six of his eleven colleagues were older, although he battled serious health issues in recent years.
Now, New Jersey’s occasionally absurd Title 19, the statute that governs elections, faces national attention. While some states, like New York, can fill congressional vacancies in ten weeks, it takes New Jersey five months – or more, depending on interpretations of incongruent statutes.
Vacancies in the U.S. House of Representatives are filled uniquely. Unlike other offices, where there are appointments or special election conventions, only voters can send someone to the people’s house. There is no way around that.
State Sen. Andrew Zwicker (D-South Brunswick) told the New Jersey Globe that he is working on a legislative fix to shorten the time it takes to fill a vacancy in the U.S. House of Representatives.
“The best time for the Legislature to shorten how long it takes New Jersey to fill a congressional vacancy is last week, and the next-best time is now,” said Micah Rasmussen, the director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University. “The last two House majorities have been in the single digits, and by most measures, it will be the same in the next Congress. New Jersey is one vacancy away from causing a five-month national deadlock. This is a fixable problem, and no lawmaker should want to look back on this as a time when they could and should have acted.”
In New Jersey, the governor decides when a special election will be held, and most of the seats remain vacant for a while. After Gov. Jim Florio was inaugurated in 1990, he declined to order a new election, so his 1st district congressional seat remained vacant until November, when voters picked his replacement.
The governor isn’t obligated to issue the writ immediately.