Reformers won; corrupt machine bosses lost. Big win for Andy Kim, Steve Fulop, Sue Altman… big loss for the Trenton lobbyists, the Murphys, pro-genocide Josh Gottheimer, the Norcrosses, Rob Menendez (the son) and the other hack careerists who dominate New Jersey politics. Andy Kim’s lawsuit worked. Federal district judge Zahid Quraishi struck down the county organizational line, the ballot design system that forms the core of New Jersey political power— and he ruled that New Jersey is free of it starting immediately. The 2024 elections will be line-free.
Tracey Tully reported that the ruling “is expected to fundamentally reshape politics in New Jersey and will have an immediate effect on June’s primary races. ‘The integrity of the democratic process for a primary election is at stake,” wrote Zahid Quraishi of U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey.”
The implications of Judge Quraishi’s decision have loomed over a high-stakes race to replace Senator Robert Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat accused of accepting bribes in exchange for political favors.
Representative Andy Kim, a Democrat running for Menendez’s seat, had made concerns over the ballot’s fairness a defining theme of the race, and last month he filed a lawsuit that led to Friday’s judicial decision.
At issue is the unique way New Jersey designs its primary election ballots. In most counties, the ballots bracket together certain groups of candidates in the same column based on endorsements by political party leaders, rather than grouping candidates together based on the office for which they are running.
For months, Tammy Murphy, the wife of Gov. Phil Murphy, was Kim’s main Senate opponent. Murphy’s path to victory was heavily dependent on the support of influential Democratic Party bosses who had [corrupt] ties to her husband and enough clout to ensure that her name would appear in the pre-eminent spot on the June 4 primary ballot.
Murphy dropped out of the race last Sunday, but the legal battle over the ballot’s design— a banal but fundamental component of electoral power in New Jersey— continued to dominate the political discussion the state.
Groups that have long fought to abolish the ballot design hailed Judge Quraishi’s ruling.
“It’s a new day in New Jersey,” said Antoinette Miles, who leads Working Families, a left-leaning alliance that since 2020 had been pushing for the court to order a new ballot design.
“Voters will finally have a meaningful choice. Candidates, no matter their background, will finally be able to enter politics on their own terms,” Miles said. “And we will finally have a system where officials are accountable to the voters rather than to the preferences of party insiders.”
In 19 of the state’s 21 counties, local political leaders cluster their preferred candidates for every office in a prominent row or column on primary ballots— a position that in New Jersey is known as “the line.” Primary challengers’ names appear off to the side or at the ballot’s edge, a spot candidates call “ballot Siberia.”
Candidates whose names appear on the county line typically win. This enables county political leaders to use ballot position to reward or punish candidates, encouraging fealty. It also gives them outsize control over policy decisions, jobs and government contracts, while simultaneously diminishing constituents’ ability to sway elections and hold elected officials accountable.
Kim had asked Judge Quraishi to instead require election officials to display the names of all the candidates running for each open position together in a discrete section of the ballot, as is done in the other 49 states.
In testimony last week during a daylong hearing in Judge Quraishi’s courtroom, Kim, 41, argued that he risked irreparable harm if the ballot were not redesigned before the primary.
Hours before the hearing, the state’s attorney general, Matthew Platkin, a Democrat and longtime ally of the governor, wrote to Judge Quraishi that he agreed the ballot design was unconstitutional.
Murphy dropped out of the race a week later.
Lawyers for county political leaders, hoping to salvage their ballot-design advantage, argued that the urgency of Kim’s request had vanished with Murphy’s decision to exit the race.
Studies by professors from Rutgers and Princeton Universities have shown that the county line gives candidates an often insurmountable advantage.
One study by Julia Sass Rubin, an associate dean at the Edward Bloustein School of Planning and Policy at Rutgers, found that being on the county line gave congressional candidates an advantage of 38 percentage points.
Sue Altman, the progressive candidate running for the congressional seat held by Tom Kean, Jr., a product of the GOP version of this corrupt system, was formerly the head of the New Jersey Working Families Party. She took a victory lap yesterday. “Today, the strongest element of the party machinery has forever been nixed,” she said in a statement, “and a new age of accountability and democracy comes to New Jersey. This is a moment so many folks have fought for, for so many years— this has truly taken a movement. A short list of people who deserve congrats today:
Great candidates who stepped up to run over the years and were pushed into Ballot Siberia because they posed a real threat to power
The brave attorneys who took this case— Brett Pugach, Yael Bromberg, Flavio Komuves— and the original plaintiffs.
Outspoken advocates who have been ostracized and threatened by an ossified machine.
Brave committee people who had the audacity to speak out under great pressure from party bosses.
The countless grassroots donors who funded the first lawsuit which laid the groundwork for this one.
The entire NJWFP Board, especially Hetty Rosenstein, CWA, MTR, and SEIU 32BJ.
Julia Sass Rubin, GGCNJ, and NJPP for providing a backbone of facts.
Attorney General Matt Platkin for clearly stating the county organizational lines as unconstitutional.
SO MANY ADVOCATES in SO MANY COUNTIES who stood up— especially this past cycle— against this archaic practice and demanded more from their county chairs.
And of course, our soon to be Senator Andy Kim!
There are now new pathways for stronger electoral organizing and better government in both parties. The next few cycles are truly a golden opportunity for better leadership and a strong democracy in New Jersey. It’s about time."
Joey Fox reported that “The case is not over yet, though. The county clerks named as defendants in the case are likely to appeal to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, and could ask for a stay on Quraishi’s decision while the potentially lengthy appeals process plays out. ‘With ballots required to be printed in one week and voting starting in 20 days, many county clerks have significant concerns about the feasibility of compliance with the Court’s order,’ said Jack Carbone on behalf of defense counsel. ‘Counsel are evaluating their options to appeal.’ But if Quraishi’s opinion stands, it would be a genuine earthquake in New Jersey politics. County political parties have long relied on the line to give their preferred candidates a substantial edge and scare off any potential challengers; without it, they will have to radically adjust their methods for promoting candidates and winning elections.”