Murphy set to name ex-Frelinghuysen opponent to bench

Vijayant Pawar, the Democratic candidate for Congress in New Jersey’s 11th district in 2002, is expected to be nominated to a Superior Court judgeship today, the New Jersey Globe has learned.

If confirmed by the State Senate, Gov. Phil Murphy’s nomination of Pawar could increase the number of South Asian American judges in a state where Asian Americans make up about 10% of the total population, according to decade-old census data.

Pawar was 27 and two years out of law school when he decided to challenge Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-Harding), then a four-term incumbent.  He lost by 84,461 votes, 72%-26%.

In that race, Pawar refused to accept contributions for corporate PACs and the pharmaceutical industry.

Since then, Pawar has gone on to serve as Director of Law and town attorney for Morristown.  He has served as Morristown municipal prosecutor and as special litigation counsel for several government agencies.  He is a founding partner at Pawar Gilgallon & Rudy, a Morristown law form.

In 2018, Pawar was elected to the Morristown Board of Education.  He defeated John Cramer by 819 votes, 59%-40%.  His term is up this year and is not expected to seek re-election.

He has served on the Board of Trustees of New Jersey City University since Gov. James E. McGreevey nominated him for the post in 2004.

Pawar slammed Frelinghuysen in 2002 for failing to complete several comprehensive issue questionnaires.

“Rodney has ignored the people of New Jersey at every turn.  He has stalled on debating to the point of reneging his promise,” said Pawar.  “It seems he wants to hide from the fact that he has done nothing for the people in New Jersey and has no convictions of his own.  He campaigns as a moderate but votes as a conservative 90% of the time and he wants to hide this record.  For too long he has taken New Jersey’s voters for granted.”

As a congressional candidate in 2002, he was among a small group of Democrats to oppose the fledgling war in Iraq.

“It is immoral for the United States to take unilateral action here since the administration has laid out no substantive plan or objective and since they have provided virtually no evidence of the Iraqi nuclear threat they keep talking about,” Pawar said.

That stance helped him win the endorsement of Americans for Democratic Action.