Garnet Hall will not seek 2nd term in Assembly

Assemblywoman Garnet Hall (D-Maplewood) will not seek re-election to a second term after losing the Essex County Democratic convention on Saturday, making the ascension of Chigozie Onyema, a young rising star in Newark politics, a near certainty, the New Jersey Globe has learned.

Onyema, the Newark West Ward Democratic municipal chairman, received 141 votes at the convention, with nine-term incumbent Cleopatra Tucker (D-Newark) finishing second with 120 votes.  Hall received 64 votes.

That means Onyema and Tucker will run with the endorsement of the Essex County Democratic organization and may use its slogan on the primary ballot in the 28th legislative district.  Onyema and Hall won the Union County Democratic screening committee endorsement earlier this week, giving them the organization slogan in Hillside.  Hillside made up about 13.5% of the votes cast in the 2023 primary.

Hall had slightly less than $17,000 cash-on-hand as of the end of 2024, and without party support, she lacks the financial resources to mount her own campaign.   She also did not have her own campaign team: an outmatched Hall had hired people who worked for her predecessor, Mila Jasey (D-South Orange), and they had not been involved in campaigns before.

Last week, Hall filed nominating petitions to run.

Early on, the conventional wisdom was that 81-year-old Tucker was in trouble.  But anticipated higher turnouts due to her ally, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, being on the ballot appears to have saved her for at least another two years.

The 28th district, which includes Newark’s West and South wards (and one district in the Central), Irvington, Maplewood, South Orange and Hillside, is one of the most Democratic in the state.  Gov. Phil Murphy won it with 83% in 2021; In 2024, Kamala Harris received 77%; interestingly, that was seven points less than Joe Biden polled four years earlier.

Hall emerged as the leading candidate just three days after Jasey announced her retirement in 2023.    The 65-year-old Maplewood Democrat became deputy county clerk in 2018 after a private sector career.  She had been the Democratic municipal vice chair.

With organization lines in place at the time, Hall acquired the Assembly seat without the convention process that began this year; she was the pick of party leaders and not the Democratic county committee in Maplewood and South Orange.

Then-Maplewood Township Committeewoman Jamaine Cripe, former Maplewood Mayor Frank McGehee; and former Maplewood Township Committeewoman India Larrier had also been considered for the post after Democrats decided that the open seat in the newly-drawn district should go to Maplewood.

In the primary, Hall was the top vote-getter with 8,520, followed by Tucker at 8,237.  McGehee, who mounted an off-the-line bid, finished third with 4,025.

In the legislature, Hall served on the Assembly Consumer Affairs, Environment Natural Resources and Solid Waste, and Labor committees.   None of her 42 bills have been signed into law.

The Essex County Clerk’s office has produced several state legislators in the past, including Assembly Budget Committee Chair Eliana Pintor Marin (D-Newark).  Assemblywoman Mary Scanlon (D-Newark), who served from 1978 to 1980 following the death of her husband, a freshman assemblyman, was a clerk-typist on the staff of legendary County Clerk Nicholas V. Caputo.  Caputo’s aide, Charles DeMarco (D-Newark), served in the New Jersey State Senate, for ten weeks in 1971 and 1972 after defeating former Essex County Coroner and Newark barber Nicholas LaSpina.  Another Caputo staffer, Florence Martone, ran for the Assembly in 1985 but lost to Republican incumbent Bob Franks (R-New Providence).

Hall becomes the fifth legislator to not run for re-election this year, joining: John Allen (D-Hoboken), Reginald Atkins (D-Roselle), and Julio Marenco (D-North Bergen), and Shavonda Sumter (D-Paterson).