Political strategizing by U.S. Rep. Rob Andrews (D-1st) to secure what he calls a “fair” spot and what anyone would see is a prime spot on the June 3 Democratic Senate primary ballot in counties from Cape May to Sussex has kept County Counsel John Porto and County Clerk Rita Fulginiti scrambling this past week.
Andrews, who announced a surprise bid to challenge U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J. in this year’s senatorial race, has 21 county clerks and counsels busy responding to a late-hour legal challenge of the county clerks’ ballot-drawing process, which differs from county to county.
Andrews doesn’t like his position drawn by county clerks on a number of county ballots, and has filed suit to ramp it up. Andrews wants to secure the best placement in the first column or row on the June 3 ballot.
The Andrews lawsuit as of this writing was to be heard by an appeals court April 28 after a trial chancery judge ruled against him last week.
The ballot drawing process is mandated to be “fair and reasonable” and, as Fulginiti says, is done in a manner fair to all candidates within the law. County clerks pull names in a pub-lic process to determine which candidates get which column on the voting ballot, which was done here April 17. Candidates can also request in advance to be “bracketed” or listed along with others of the same political affiliation. If the affiliate’s designated leader ap-proves, those requests are routinely granted.
Andrews, here in Cape May County, ended up in Column 2 along with county demorats, with Lautenberg and Donald Cresitello in Column 1.
In his lawsuit, Andrews now argues state law forbids a U.S. Senate candidate from joining with other candidates on the ballot and that it’s unfair to give preferential ballot placement to those associated with a slate of candidates, commonly called the “county line.”
The rub is that Andrews sent an official request, at least in Cape May County, April 8 to be bracketed with other Democrats in the Cape May County Regular Democratic Organiza-tion, and that request was granted with the blessing of James Pickering, county Democrat leader, in a letter dated April 9.
What’s baffling — if you step back and look at this from a purely common-sense/apolitical point of view — is that Andrews got exactly what he asked for — to be bracketed — but now is arguing against those very officials who granted his request, that state law forbids U.S. Senate candidates from joining with other candidates on the ballot.
Gee whiz. Make up your mind, Rob.
Porto will tell you, however, and so would Lautenberg, who filed an answer as an interve-nor, that the portion of the statute Andrews cites as requiring Senatorial or gubernatorial candidates to be alone was ruled unconstitutional by the New Jersey Supreme Court back when Bret Schundler made a similar challenge in his bid for the governor’s seat in 2005.
While the issues are constitutional and touch on the lofty ideas of the right of association and the fairness and integrity of the balloting process, this lawsuit boils down to politics, plain and simple, and we, the taxpayers, are the unlucky ducks paying for it.
Porto said to respond he’s spent at least 10 hours burning the midnight oil to research and file answers and obtain the proper certifications, in addition to participating by phone at court hearings along with the other 20 counties involved. Everything else in his office has had to take a back seat under these pressure cooker deadlines. This lawsuit’s turnaround time is like a siren, owing to the late hour and deadlines to get primary ballots to the printer. The ballots, at least in Cape May County, were set to go to the printer April 25, Fulginiti said, but now must await the court’s decision April 28.
Fulginiti said she’s concerned about getting the absentee ballots out in time for overseas military troops to return them.
While it is always healthy in a democratic system when voters have a choice, and two candidates running for office is certainly better than just one, it would be much better if Andrews spent more time talking about his platform rather than on making county officials jump through legal hoops in a lawsuit that, in the end, seems to have little chance of pre-vailing.
Even better, spend time sponsoring some new legislation, Rob. The last major action on any of the bills Andrews sponsored, according to the Library of Congress, was November 2006.