Updated: Belgard will not hear Burlington commissioner matter

Update: Judge Aimee Belgard will not hear a lawsuit involving a vacant Burlington County Commissioner seat, the Administrative Office of the Courts told the New Jersey Globe.  They said no assignment has been made.

A lawsuit filed on Friday evening by Burlington County Republicans to stop Democrats from filling a county commissioner seat after they missed the deadline has been assigned to a judge who served as a Democratic freeholder in Burlington.

Court records show that Superior Court Judge Aimee Belgard, a Democrat who served as a Burlington County freeholder from 2013 to 2015, will need to decide whether Democrats can still appoint a new county commissioner even though the deadline was more than a month ago.

Republicans allege that Joe Andl, the Democratic county chairman, “squandered” his chance to replace Linda Hynes on the Board of Commissioners, since state law requires special election conventions to be held within 35 days of the vacancy.

Hynes, a Democrat, resigned as a county commissioner on January 15 to be sworn in as a Superior Court Judge.

The judge’s husband, Edgewater Park Mayor Bill Belgard, attended a Burlington Democratic petition signing event and county committee meeting on Saturday morning, hours after the lawsuit was filed.  Democrats affirmed their support for Allison Eckel to run for the open county commissioner seat this year, although no vote was taken on the vacant post.   Bill Belgard is up for re-election this year.

Belgard, who serves as the civil division presiding judge, was elected to the Edgewater Park Township Committee in 2009 and then challenged Freeholder Joe Donnelly in 2010.  She was elected freeholder in 2012, ousting two incumbents – one of them was Mary Ann O’Brien, now a Superior Court Judge.

After Rep. Jon Runyan (R-Moorestown) announced that he would not seek a third term in Congress in 2014, Belgard became a candidate for the open 3rd district House seat.  She lost to Republican Tom MacArthur by a 54%-44% margin.

In 2015, Belgard and her running mate, Joanne Schwartz, lost their freeholder re-election bids to Republicans Ryan Peters and Kate Gibbs.  Schwartz, now the Burlington County, is a defendant in the Republican lawsuit.

In total, Belgard won four Burlington Democratic conventions and ran on the organization line four times.

Following her defeat, Belgard became part of a package of judges that Gov. Chris Christie nominated to the Superior Court in 2015.  The Senate confirmed Belgard on December 17 and she was sworn in as a judge on December 18.

With two weeks left on her term, Andl did not move to fill her seat, although he could have done so in time to have a Democratic freeholder in place for the last meeting of the year on December 28.