Maplewood mayor dispute is now an issue in governor’s race

Allegations of heavy-handed tactics in an insider election to pick next year’s mayor of Maplewood is now an issue in the Democratic gubernatorial primary after the township committee dumped Deborah Engel as punishment for not endorsing Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-Montclair).

The move came as a surprise to political observers who have watched Maplewood, a Democratic stronghold with a recent history of opposing old-style political hackery in a community with high voter turnout, a well-informed electorate, and a pattern of making collaborative decisions.

“If New Jersey is going to change for the better, then this sort of politics needs to change.  This is a terrible look, but it again speaks volumes about the political machine in New Jersey and how it operates,” said Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop.  “We saw this same playbook with the U.S. Senate primary earlier this year between Murphy (and) Kim.”

Former Montclair Mayor Sean Spiller sharply criticized the Maplewood group for retaliating against Engel, a first-term township committeewoman who had the votes lined up to become mayor only to have them taken away when she wouldn’t sign on to a letter of local elected officials supporting Sherrill.

“These heavy-handed attempts to leverage privilege and power over people who want to run for office need to stop,” said Spiller.

Sherrill said she “was disappointed to read this news” but stopped short of telling her four supporters on the township committee to restore their support of Engel.

“Deb is a wonderful public servant for the people of Maplewood, and, like her, I believe deeply in the democratic process,” Sherrill stated.  “As Deb said, this did not come from our campaign and has no place here. I’m going to keep working every day to earn support from New Jerseyans.”

The other four members of next year’s governing body have endorsed Sherrill, who represents Maplewood in Congress.

Instead of Engel, Nancy Adams will stay on as mayor, and Malia Herman, a township committeewoman-elect, will become deputy mayor.

A tweet from the Maplewood Democratic Committee confirmed that Sherrill or her campaign was not involved in the decision to flip their support of Engel to Adams.

But Rebecca Scheer, the Democratic municipal vice chair, distanced the local party organization from the decision of the five Democratic township committee members.

“The Maplewood Democratic Committee had no role in it and this is not in any way contrary to our pro-democracy reforms of the last few years,” she said.

Fulop, who has made his opposition to party bosses a cornerstone of his gubernatorial campaign, suggested that the Maplewood issue reflects poorly on Sherrill.

“From the start of this campaign, I’ve been saying the same thing: the political bosses with big personal money tied to this system will coalesce around the candidate they know they can control and who best represents the status quo,” said Fulop.  “Then they will squeeze anyone that doesn’t fall in line.”

Engel told the New Jersey Globe that she “felt pressured that I had to endorse a certain candidate”  and said she wanted to hear more about how Sherrill would govern before she agreed to an endorsement.

“I’m for competitive primaries,” Engel said.