Democrats have not lost a race for Camden County Clerk since 1935, and for countywide office since 1990, so Assemblywoman Pamela Lampitt (D-Cherry Hill) is the favorite to win the post in November.
To become county clerk, Lampitt must resign from the State Assembly seat she’s held since 2006 next January; that means the Assembly Education Committee will get a new chair for the first time in seven years. This puts Speaker Craig Coughlin in a position to make a mid-term replacement.
There is no frontrunner.
Three freshmen lawmakers are on the Education Committee—Rosy Bagolie (D-Livingston), Carmen Morales (D-Belleville), and Avi Schnall (D-Lakewood) — but Coughlin opposed giving first-term legislators a gavel earlier this year. Schnall, a staunch supporter of school vouchers and state funding for private schools, could create a political headache for the speaker with the teacher’s union in an election year.
Lampitt became chair in 2018 after Marlene Caride (D-Ridgefield) left to become Commissioner of Banking and Insurance. At the time, South Jersey Democrats had backed Coughlin in his bid to oust Speaker Vincent Prieto; Lampitt received the gavel having never served on the Education Committee before.
When committee chairmanships opened up during a legislative session in the past, Coughlin elevated the vice chair. In this case, the vice chair recently is Sterley Stanley (D-East Brunswick), who became chairman of the influential Regulated Professions Committee in January and might not want Education.
If Stanley did move to Education, Shanique Speight (D-Newark) could move up from vice chair to chair of Regulated Professions. That could open up Aging and Human Services for the vice chair, Cleopatra Tucker (D-Newark), if she wants to trade the Military and Veterans’ Affairs gavel for it at age 81.
Eventually, the game of musical committee chairs runs out. Wayne DeAngelo (D-Hamilton) won’t vacate the more influential Telecommunications and Utilities chairmanship for it.
Out of convenience, Coughlin could go to another Group C committee chair, like Shaima Haider (D-Tenafly) or Ellen Park (D-Englewood Cliffs), and move them to Education and then replace them at Children, Families and Food Security and Judiciary, respectively.
Or the speaker could tap a leadership team member to chair Education for one year. That could elevate Majority Whip Carol Murphy (D-Mount Laurel), if she’s not in Congress, Speaker Pro-Tempore Benjie Wimberly (D-Paterson), Majority Conference Leader Annette Quijano (D-Elizabeth), Assemblywoman Verlina Reynolds-Jackson (D-Trenton), or Assemblyman Gary Schaer (D-Passaic).
Other potential candidates could require some shuffling of assignments: Linda Carter (D-Plainfield), a teacher, might trade her Higher Education chair for Lampitt’s job.
If Herb Conaway, Jr. (D-Delran) wins his race for Congress in New Jersey’s third district, Coughlin will also need to find a new chair of the influential Assembly Health Committee; the vice chair of that panel is Lampitt.
Four other Democrats on the Health Committee chair other committees; Coughlin could opt to put freshman Margie Donlon (D-Ocean Township) in the post—she and Conaway are the only physicians in the legislature.
In the unlikely event that people don’t know this: the last Republican to serve as Camden County Clerk was Dr. Leslie Ewing; Democrat Frank Sutthill unseated him in 1940 when Franklin Roosevelt carried Camden by a near 2-1 margin over Wendell Willkie.