NJ-10: Donald Payne passes away (4/24/2024)

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I hope he’ll be alright, but this doesn’t sound great: https://payne.house.gov/media/press-releases/congressman-donald-m-payne-jrs-health-update

Yeah, “while we hope for a full recovery” doesn’t sound optimistic

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RIP.

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Baraka allies are apparently pushing city council president LaMonica McIver, although the county party may need persuading. https://www.insidernj.com/baraka-organization-veteran-mciver-well-positioned-but-cd-10-situation-complex/?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=socialnetwork

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McIver gets The Line: https://newjerseyglobe.com/congress/newark-council-president-expected-to-replace-payne/

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https://twitter.com/wildstein/status/1787825710570287319

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Other candidates who are apparently planning to run: Linden (Union County) mayor Derek Armstead and state economic development official (and former Booker administration official) Darryl Godfrey. Deadline is this Friday.

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Filing deadline is over, here’s the list of candidates: https://newjerseyglobe.com/congress/heres-who-filed-in-the-special-election-primary-to-replace-donald-payne-jr/

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McIver receives Union County Dem endorsement by a 5-4 vote over Armstead. https://newjerseyglobe.com/congress/mciver-defeats-armstead-by-one-vote-for-union-dem-endorsement/

Also mods, I think we could stand to merge this with the special election megathread?

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Hudson County votes not to endorse.

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Challenge to McIver’s petitions by Claybrooks and Armstead. McIver claims that her mother circulated all the petitions herself, but one of her own aides is disputing that and saying he also circulated petitions. The actual legal challenge isn’t about that - he seems to just be going rogue - but rather the (much weaker) theory that McIver’s mother just couldn’t have gotten that many signatures herself, though. I’m frankly not optimistic it’ll work, and I don’t think she should be thrown off just based on that, but the aide’s story is more serious. Final decision is in the hands of the SoS - and the deadline is Monday.

https://newjerseyglobe.com/campaigns/mciver-aide-admits-to-circulating-petitions-disputes-candidates-mother-got-1081-signatures-alone/

(Claybrooks’s petitions are also being challenged by McIver due to several signatures having the same handwriting, but that’s not going anywhere either.)

Update: hearing was reopened after that story emerged, but Claybrooks and Armstead didn’t present any evidence related to it. Everyone’s still on the ballot.

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SOS Way remands both petitions back to the ALJs and reset her deadline to Thursday. Remand instructions were largely procedural, but she did instruct the ALJ in the McIver complaint to consider the admissibility of text messages from McIver’s aide claiming to have circulated petitions.

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ALJ again refuses to throw McIver off the ballot as the text messages are apparently hearsay (despite being party-opponent statements). Claybrooks petition still under review before a different ALJ.

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Claybrooks wins her case and Way approves both decisions. All candidates remain on the ballot. Draw should be today.

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Lawsuit and accompanying secret recording allege (well, show) that Derek Armstead and Linden city employees discussed hiring black and Haitian employees in the school system over Jews: https://www.nj.com/politics/2024/05/nj-mayor-opposed-hiring-jews-warned-of-guys-in-big-hats-and-curls-in-secretly-recorded-meeting-suit-charges.html

“I don’t care what they are,” Armstead said on the recording, in response to the school board president’s call for Black or Haitian candidates. “If they’re from the general area here, that’s what we’re trying to build here. That’s what has to happen in order to keep our community being taken over by guys with big hats and curls and I’m just keeping it real. And if people don’t understand that, you know, we are really trying to save our community here.”

He also complained of one prospective maintenance worker who failed to show up for a training session and then left Linden, selling his home to someone in the Jewish community.

“Moved out of town,” Armstead said. “He sold his house to the guys with the big hats and the curls too. So, you know, everybody’s undermining the progress we’re trying to make here in town.”