Alleging that South Jersey Democrats deliberately made a mockery of New Jersey’s new Elections Transparency Act by creating a tenebrous independent expenditure group that sought to mislead voters and push Republicans toward independent candidates, State Sen. Vince Polistina (R-Egg Harbor Township) wants the state’s campaign finance watchdog to launch an investigation.
In a letter to the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission, Polistina wants a probe to determine if Jersey Freedom was created specifically to hide contributions and expenditures that interfered with elections in the 2nd and 4th districts.
“During the last election, there were numerous reports about the efforts of some to recruit shadow candidates and establish various super PACs to support these shadow candidates in South Jersey,” Polistina said. “Many of these activities were being conducted in a manner to hide the money responsible for running television ads and sending mailers in several districts.”
According to Polistina, Jersey Freedom was “perhaps the most egregious example.” He said the group began supporting independents – one of them appeared to be a phantom candidate, Giuseppe Costanzo, who ran as a conservative in the 4th district – and targeted Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-Dennis) in an attack email.
The email slamming Van Drew on offshore wind was sent on September 7, prior to the group filing with ELEC.
“The more you dig, the more you realize that none of this story makes any sense,” said Polistina, who was re-elected to a second term by a wide margin earlier this month. “To ensure that this type of election interference never happens again, I am calling on ELEC to conduct a complete and transparent investigation and prosecute any crimes that occurred. The people of New Jersey need to have the utmost confidence in their elections.”
South Jersey Democrats have acknowledged that Jersey Freedom was one of the independent expenditure groups they used in this year’s election.
The group was funded entirely by Brighter Future Forward, another political committee allied with South Jersey Democrats. That group was funded by the Carpenters Union and another one of their organizations, American Representative Majority, which received a $1.9 million loan from Democratic powerbroker George Norcross.
Jersey Freedom is represented by attorney William Tambussi, the longtime counsel to the Camden County Democrats.
They maintain that they followed the new law passed earlier this year.
The group, headquartered in Jamaica, Queens, sent attack mailers and ran cable TV ads on Fox News in a bid to redirect Republican voters from the GOP Senate nominee in the 4th district, Christopher Del Borrello, to Giuseppe Costanzo, a ghost candidate running as an independent conservative. An 11-day pre-election report showed no donors and roughly $35,000 in debt.
Jersey Freedom also spent money seeking votes for a real Senate candidate, Libertarian Shawn Peck, in the 2nd district. Peck’s outage over the Jersey Freedom mailer led him to drop out of the race and endorse Polistina.
Jersey Freedom says it began running ads with Comcast “outside the time period covered by the 11-day pre-election report.”
“Expenditures made outside of the time period covered by the 11-day pre-election report will be reported on the 20-day post-election report as required by the plain language of the Election Transparency Act,” the statement noted.
Four days before the election, Superior Court Judge Michael Blee froze Jersey Freedom’s funds.
There is no indication that Costanzo mounted any effort besides allowing Angela McGeehan, the daughter of a former Washington Township Democratic municipal chairman, to circulate his nominating petitions.
In a call with the New Jersey Globe today, McGeehan again declined to comment on her role.
“I don’t have anything to say at this time,” she stated.
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