Gov. Phil Murphy has nominated a former Republican state senator to a seat on the New Jersey Racing Commission.
Jennifer Beck (R-Red Bank) served one term in the State Assembly and three terms in the State Senate before losing her seat to Democrat Vin Gopal (D-Long Branch) in 2017.
She will replace John A. Hoffman, a Democratic stalwart from Middlesex County and former chairman of the Wilentz law firm. He is the father of John Jay Hoffman, Murphy’s nominee for associate justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court. Hoffman left the panel in 2018.
The nomination has been in the works for nearly three years. The New Jersey Globe first reported Beck wanted the post in 2021.
The panel regulates New Jersey’s horseracing industry.
Murphy also nominated John Duthie, the treasurer/administrator of the New Jersey State Laborers PAC, to serve on the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority. He will replace Anthony Scardino, Jr. (D-Lyndhurst), a former state senator and Lyndhurst mayor who spent eighteen years as the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission executive director. The 88-year-old Scardino is retiring.
Jeffrey Oakman, Murphy’s senior policy advisor and a former Clinton White House staffer, was nominated to replace former Montgomery Mayor Louise Wilson as a member of the State Planning Commissioner.
Camden County Commissioner Jonathan Young was nominated to replace former Gloucester County Commissioner Daniel Christy for a Delaware River Port Authority seat.
Murphy also nominated four new Superior Court Judges, including Jey Rajaraman of Westfield, the associate director of the American Bar Association’s Center on Children and the Law. She is a former chief counsel of the Family Representation Project at Legal Services of New Jersey, an ex-public defender, and an adjunct professor at Seton Hall Law School.
Heidi Weintraub, a trial lawyer from Kenilworth, and James B. Johnston, a former lieutenant detective at the Essex County Prosecutor’s office and an attorney for the Jersey City Law Department, were also nominated for Union County judgeships. Johnston is the Union Township Planning Board secretary.
Paul J. Halasz, a partner in Day Pitney’s Parsippany office and a member of the commercial litigation group, was nominated to a Morris County seat.