The Watcher: Is the RGA committed to winning Jersey?

Sorry, the GOP is closed on Sundays

Four years ago, the Republican Governors Association (RGA) took a pass on Jack Ciattarelli’s bid to oust incumbent Phil Murphy after former Gov. Chris Christie told his former staffers there that Ciattarelli could not win.  The race turned out to be a three-point nailbiter, and some believe the decision not to invest in New Jersey helped cost Republicans a governorship.

With Murphy term-limited and the state’s propensity to elect a governor of another party after eight years – it’s been 64 years since a party won a third consecutive gubernatorial election – the conventional wisdom is that New Jersey will be in play this year.

There had been speculation that the RGA might come into New Jersey early, perhaps to play in the Democratic primary and influence the selection of a Democratic nominee.  But that never happened.

And last week, the RGA telegraphed a lack of interest in New Jersey.  The New Jersey Globe extended an invitation to the Democratic Governors Association (DGA) to take questions from the state’s press corps after the Republican debate, and the RGA to do the same after the Democratic candidates’ debates.  The DGA jumped at the offer and sent two staffers to New Jersey, but the RGA, after mulling the opportunity for two weeks, declined the day before the Democratic debate.

Perhaps one day, the RGA will explain how their entire communications shop was unavailable on a Sunday evening in May in a year where there are only two gubernatorial races in the nation — and really, just one competitive one.

There’s little doubt that President Donald Trump is playing to win in New Jersey this year, but the RGA, chaired by Christie a decade ago and still home to some of the former governor’s supporters, might not be on the same page as the White House.

What’s more likely is that RGA staff just didn’t want to give up a Sunday to travel to New Jersey and get a hotel room in Newark.  That ought to concern the nominee, whomever he is.

GENIUS BAR: Earlier this month, The Watcher caught up with two old friends, both sitting Superior Court Judges, and complained that the Judiciary website was not user-friendly, difficult to navigate, and that outdated technology blocked full transparency.  Over the course of the discussion, The Watcher handed a laptop to the two judges and gave them nine cases to look up; the judges were able to traverse njcourts.gov without difficulty just two out of nine times.  Both judges, with growing appreciation for their law clerks, ultimately ruled in favor of The Watcher, slamming the judiciary site as difficult to use.

Still, the Judiciary’s flak, Peter McAleer, doubled down on his defense of the court’s public website: “The Judiciary has continued to expand the public’s ability to access case files and court documents in recent years. Civil and foreclosure cases, criminal judgments, judgment liens, tax court cases, municipal court cases, and information on criminal proceedings are all available online,” McAleer said.  “We are happy to assist the public and representatives of the media if they need assistance retrieving public documents.”

SHORT LIST: If he becomes governor, Republican Jack Ciattarelli has suggested that his attorney general would likely have prosecutorial experience.   One name that has surfaced is Michael Robertson, a former Somerset County Prosecutor with ties to top Ciattarelli advisors.  Before becoming county prosecutor, Robertson served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Health Care and Government Fraud Unit.  Atlantic County Prosecutor William Reynolds is also a potential Ciattarelli pick.  At the Republican gubernatorial debate last week, Ciattarelli suggested that he’d rather have his first choice as an acting attorney general than go with someone else with a clear path to Senate confirmation, not that Robertson or Reynolds would necessarily encounter any difficulties.

TRUTH: There continues to be growing evidence that North Bergen Mayor Nicholas Sacco is tied to YouTube agitator Leonard Filipowski, aka LeRoy Truth.  Hudson County View reported that two Assembly candidates backed by Sacco, Tony Hector and Frank Alonso, paid $10,000 to Truth Investigations.  So far, Sacco has sidestepped any direct connection to Filipowski, but that might not last.  The feud between Union City Mayor/State Sen. Brian Stack and Sacco contributed to a Democratic war in Hudson County in the June 10 primary election.   Stack has claimed to be “the target of intensified harassment and paid attacks.”   One Hudson County Democrat put it rather elegantly: “The dude, he don’t work for free.”

MONETIZING THE CHARGES: The New Jersey Democratic State Committee is raising money off a tweet by Rep. Nancy Mace announcing that she’d filed a resolution seeking to expel Rep. LaMonica McIver from the House after being charged with assaulting an ICE officer at a Newark immigration detention facility.  “Bless her heart,” McIver said.  “I won’t back down from Nancy’s threats or the fight for our democracy.”  The proceeds of an email fundraising solicitation would be split between the state party’s federal account and McIver for Congress.

JACK OWES MIKIE: Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mikie Sherrill is spending a sizeable amount of money boosting the candidacy of a potential general election opponent, Republican Jack Ciattarelli.  Sherrill’s latest TV ad highlights President Donald Trump’s endorsement of Ciattarelli, something that Ciattarelli is also spending money publicizing.  Josh Gottheimer’s new ad also promotes the Trump-Ciattarelli alliance.

THE WORLD ACCORDING TO DUBICKI: So far, 221,722 vote-by-mail ballots have been marked as received by election officials, according to Associated Press election researcher Ryan Dubicki.  Democrats and Republicans are returning VBMs at a rate of roughly 32%; Democrats requested about three times as many ballots. Over 691,000 mail-in ballots were requested and more than 469,000 of them have not yet been sent back.

STAR WITNESS WAS A KILLER: The embattled New Jersey Office of Public Integrity and Accountability scored another loss last week when a judge in a bench trial acquitted three corrections officers for beating an incarcerated man at a state prison in Newark.  The three were charged with second-degree official misconduct.  Their attorney, Patrick Toscano, criticized Attorney General Matt Platkin for relying on the testimony of a convicted murderer to make the state’s case.  Platkin was critical of the judge’s ruling.

COMPLIANCE AND ENFORCEMENT: New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission will complete random audits of 2025 primary candidates, including those seeking local, county and state offices, for possible enforcement action.   The audits will look at common violations, including excessive contributions, impermissible use of campaign funds, failure to file 72/24 hour notices, and late filings of pre-election transactions after the election is over.  “The primary goal of the Election Law Enforcement Commission is to encourage and facilitate compliance with the State’s campaign finance rules to ensure the maximum amount of disclosure of campaign activity,” said ELEC Chairman Thomas Prol.  He said the new initiative seeks to “encourage candidates at all levels of government in the State to report their campaign activity in a timely and accurate manner.”

HINT: The decision of Passaic County Sheriff Thomas Adamo to take sides in the Hudson County Democratic War and endorse Bayonne Mayor Jimmy Davis over five-term Sheriff Frank X. Schillari is an indication that the longtime Passaic County Democratic Chairman (and former Democratic State Chairman) John Currie is backing the Hudson County Democratic Organization ticket.  Both party organizations are supporting Rep. Mikie Sherrill for governor.

DOCTOR: Former State Senator and Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Chairman Kevin O’Toole delivered the commencement address at the New Jersey Institute of Technology last week and was presented with an honorary doctorate.  “This institution has been recognized for its academic excellence for more than a century, and it’s a privilege to be part of such a meaningful moment for the graduates,” O’Toole said.

NEW GIG: Recently retired state Appellate Court Judge Mary Gibbons Whipple has joined Porzio, Bromberg & Newman’s litigation group.   She had served on the state bench since 2010 as one of the last judicial nominees of Gov. Jon Corzine.  Her late father, John Gibbons, spent more than twenty years as a judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

AUTHOR: Sussex County Republican Chairman Joseph Labarbera has written a book, The Path to a Prosperous and Free New Jersey, which argues that decades of Democratic leadership has made the state “a place of economic hardship, rising taxes and dwindling freedoms,” but that the Republicans have been “fractured and directionless.”

WORTH WATCHING: A family who has owned a farm in Cranbury since 1850 is pledging a legal fight to prevent the township from taking their property through eminent domain to fulfill their affordable housing requirements.  The latest generation of farm owners, two brothers, say they’ve turned down offers from warehouse developers eyeing their property, set between the New Jersey Turnpike and Route 130, for decades.  Two of the five members of the all-Democratic township committee are up for election this year.

TRIVIA: What happened in a 1952 U.S. Senate race in Arizona should eventually shape the world.  The majority leader of the U.S. Senate, Democrat Ernest McFarland, was seeking a third term against 42-year-old Phoenix City Councilman Barry Goldwater.  Goldwater managed a winning gubernatorial campaign in 1950 and helped build a resurgent Republican Party in what had been a Democratic state; he was encouraged to mount his own statewide campaign.  By the summer, the race had tightened: The Arizona Poll released in July had Goldwater ahead by two points; in late September, The Arizona Poll had McFarland leading by four points, 49%-45%.    Goldwater unseated McFarland by 6,725 votes, 51%-49%.  He would become the Republican nominee for President in 1964, carrying Arizona and five southern states.

BOOK & FILM: If you are an aficionado of the history of American presidential elections, your personal library ought to include The Making of the President by Pulitzer Prize winner Theodore H. White.  White’s series includes the 1960, 1964, 1968, and 1972 elections.  And if you want an up-close look at how Barry Goldwater secured the GOP presidential nomination in 1964 to run against President Lyndon B. Johnson, Suite 3505: The Story of the Draft Goldwater Movement by F. Clifton White is a must-read.

One of the greatest political films ever made is The Best Man (1964), based on a 1960 play by Gore Vidal, set at a national political convention where an idealistic former Secretary of State, played by Henry Fonda, is battling a ruthless U.S. Senator (Cliff Robertson) for the presidential nomination.  You can watch it for free on YouTube.