After Tammy Murphy drops from Senate race, attorney defending NJ county line sees an opening

Published Mar 25, 2024 at 5:20 p.m. ET

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Published Mar 25, 2024 at 5:20 p.m. ET

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New Jersey First Lady Tammy Murphy’s departure from the U.S. Senate race could open up new arguments for the clerks defending New Jersey’s unusual county line primary ballot system in court.

One of the several attorneys looking to defend the county line system is telling the judge Murphy’s dropout “drastically changes” the court case, which could upend how politics and elections unfold in New Jersey. Rep. Andy Kim — now the race’s sole frontrunner — is suing to stop counties from using the ballot system, which groups candidates endorsed by political organizations in slates. Researchers say that makes endorsed candidates look more legitimate to voters.

Attorney Mark Natale's letter to Judge Zahid Quraishi comes just a day after Murphy decided to suspend her campaign at a meeting with some of New Jersey’s most powerful Democratic party organization chairs as well as another attorney defending the ballot system.

Peg Schaffer, the Somerset County Democratic Committee chair, confirmed to Gothamist she and several other county party chairs met with Murphy and campaign advisers this weekend at the law office of Angelo Genova. The Newark attorney is representing 19 county clerks who say it’s too late to change their ballot designs before the June primary election and a change could confuse voters.

But Schaffer said Genova was in the meeting primarily to talk to the chairs about what's involved in awarding the coveted county line ballot position to Kim, after previously committing to Murphy. Schaffer said she didn’t have any comment on the court case, telling Gothamist, “I have no idea. I’m not involved in that.”

Genova and the Murphy campaign did not return messages Monday seeking comment on what role Genova played in the discussions about the campaign, or whether the future of the court case was a factor in those talks.

In the federal court case, Kim argues the county line system is unconstitutional because it lets party political organizations give a huge advantage to their preferred candidates. Critics also allege it protects political establishment interests while making it hard for newcomers and reformers to win elections.

Tuesday morning, the court will hold an emergency conference to hear from Natale, who is representing the Burlington County clerk.

Murphy was slated to be placed on the "line” in ballots used by about two-thirds of Democrats in the state, after a series of county conventions or, in some large counties, decisions made by party bosses directly. But, Natale noted in his letter to the judge, now Kim “will hold the ballot position this very lawsuit alleges is unconstitutional in every county in the state that utilizes this design.”

The attorney wrote that this Murphy's decision “drastically changes the relevant analysis of irreparable harm” in the case. He wrote the clerks defending the case “are now prejudiced without the ability to supplement the record to fit this paradigm shift in the election.”

Natale declined to comment on the case due the pending litigation.

Quraishi could rule any day on the request by Kim and two other plaintiffs — South Jersey congressional candidates Sarah Schoengood and Carolyn Rush — for a preliminary injunction that would force counties to change their ballot design for the June primary election.

Yael Bromberg, an attorney representing Kim and the other plaintiffs in the case, said Monday that the lawsuit would continue and their strategy would not change.

“New Jersey cannot tolerate one more unconstitutional election,” she said, adding that the letter and Murphy’s withdrawal “do not change the fact that the plaintiff's motion for preliminary injunction remains ripe and emergent.”

“The clerk's county line primary ballots continue to violate the constitutional rights of all three candidates who are suing, as well as the rights of the voters,” Bromberg said.

In the 19 of 21 New Jersey counties that use the county line system, Democratic and Republican party committees decide which candidates to endorse. Then, county clerks place the endorsed candidates for different offices all together in one column or row on ballots.

Because well-known elected officials, such as President Joe Biden, are at the top of the line, many voters tick off every box that follows. Research by a Rutgers public policy professor shows it can confer a huge benefit to down-ballot candidates.

In a video statement Sunday, Murphy said she was dropping out just four months after she first announced because continuing in the race “will involve waging a very divisive and negative campaign.”

Schaffer, recounting the meeting with Murphy and other party chairs, described the decision as “sad.”

“The First Lady and her advisers talked about the fact that they had looked at their path forward, and while they believed there was still a real opportunity to win, it would have been unpleasant. … It could have been a bloodbath was what they talked about, and the first lady said that Democrats fighting Democrats is not what she's in this for.”

Murphy suspended her campaign just one day ahead of the filing deadline to appear on primary ballots. Kim remains in the Democratic primary race with longtime activists Lawrence Hamman and Patricia Campos-Medina, though both lag far behind Kim polling and party support.

The Republican primary will see a contest between hotel entrepreneur Curtis Bashaw and Mendham Borough Mayor Christine Serrano Glassner. Former News 12 New Jersey reporter Alex Zdan dropped from the race Monday. New Jersey last sent a Republican to the Senate more than half a century ago.

In his letter, Natale wrote that prior to Murphy's decision to drop out, the defendants in the case built their defense with a “fundamentally different context than the current reality” and are now prejudiced from being able to supplement their case to “fit this paradigm shift” in the Senate election.

Kim won most county conventions where delegates voted to award endorsements through secret ballots, but party chairs in most of the state’s largest and most Democrat-rich counties awarded the line to Murphy directly.

In a call with reporters Sunday night, Kim confirmed he’d accepted county political organizations’ offers of the line in counties previously slated to endorse Murphy.

“Well, [what] I said in the courtroom, when asked about this exact situation is, ‘Look, like if I don't take lines, it gives me a competitive disadvantage.’”

“And you know, that's just the system as it is. So I feel, as I said, this is not a system I want to participate in. I think it's unfair and that's why I'm trying to change it,” he said.

Chairs for Somerset, Passaic, Bergen, Hudson and Essex county Democratic organizations were all part of the meeting with Murphy this weekend, Schaffer said. On a call with Kim, they asked for assurances “that he would be comfortable running on our line and bracketing with our candidates,” she said.

Micah Rasmussen, director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics at Ryder University, said Murphy’s departure could compromise Kim's ability to argue he has an emergency need for an injunction.

“He's got to prove irreparable harm and remember that he was suing because he was not given a place on ballot lines that he now has. So it does complicate the case considerably,” Rasmussen said.

Rasmussen said he doesn’t think the lawsuit will necessarily go away completely.

“In terms of how the judge looks at this, he might say, ‘Well, yeah, this is still something we need to deal, with and we still need to fix this ballot, but we may … not need to fix it between now and June, this very short time frame that we have,” he said.

Nancy Solomon contributed reporting.

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Mike Hayes covers equity and access to opportunity in New Jersey. He joined WNYC and Gothamist in 2023. Before that, he worked as a freelance journalist writing about policing and criminal justice. He has written for ProPublica, CNN, HuffPost, BuzzFeed News and The Appeal. He is also the author of the book, “The Secret Files: Bill De Blasio, The NYPD, and the Broken Promises of Police Reform.” In 2019, he was a finalist for the Livingston Award for Young Journalists.

Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations

Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations

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