As counties around New Jersey begin the process of settling their legal battles over the county line, Rep. Andy Kim (D-Moorestown) – the lead litigant in the case that temporarily struck down the line earlier this year – says he won’t use any settlement money for his 2024 campaign.
“Any and all settlement funds will go towards paying the cost incurred for the legal representation and expert testimony used to remedy the constitutional harm done to voters and candidates through unfair ballot practices, and not a penny will go towards 2024 campaigning,” Kim spokesperson Katey Sabo said.
Last week, U.S. District Judge Zahid Quraishi approved settlements put forward by the Burlington and Middlesex County Clerks barring the use of the county line, which allows county parties to group their endorsed candidates together on primary ballots, in future elections. Instead, the two county clerks’ offices will switch to using office-block ballots, the more neutral ballot design style prevalent in the rest of the country.
The settlement deals also required both counties to pay back Kim’s legal fees: $25,000 from Burlington and $32,533 from Middlesex, paid to the law firm Weissman and Mintz. If and when more counties choose to put forward settlement agreements, Kim’s pledge today means that that money, too, will go exclusively towards the congressman’s legal fees and expert witnesses.
Kim, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, filed his anti-line lawsuit last February, when he was still locked in a fierce primary battle with First Lady Tammy Murphy, who had been granted the Democratic county line in many of New Jersey’s largest counties. Kim and his lawyers argued that the line ran afoul of the Constitution and federal election law in several ways, and insisted that it be struck down ahead of the June 2024 primary.
Quraishi agreed, issuing a preliminary injunction prohibiting the use of the line in the Democratic primary (the Republican primary was unaffected, since none of the plaintiffs in the case were Republicans). His order was later upheld on appeal, and New Jersey Democrats voted on office-block ballots in June.
The decision only applied to this year’s primary, but it bode poorly for the county line’s chances in a longer-running anti-line case filed back in 2020 by unsuccessful congressional candidate Christine Conforti. (The Conforti case had also been assigned to Quraishi, and featured many of the same attorneys and legal arguments as the Kim case.)
When the Burlington and Middlesex clerks’ offices put forward their settlement deals last week, they applied to both the Kim and Conforti cases, closing the loop on both lawsuits. The ultimate effect is the same regardless: the demise of the county line and the implementation of office-block ballots.
The settlement does include a catch, however: if a future judge rules that the county line must be enforced, or if the New Jersey Legislature “passes new legislation that supersedes, amends, or replaces the statutory provisions that are the subject of this litigation,” then the clerks’ offices will be relieved of the requirements of the settlement.