By Laura Leibowitz and Catherine Hunt

“No one should extend their own term of office”

Last year in Middlesex County, more than 60 Progressive Democratic challengers ran for the little-known office of Democratic County Committee.  We expected that many more would join the growing challenge and run in 2021.  To prevent this, Chairman Kevin McCabe and his party bosses of the Middlesex County “Democratic” Organization (MCDO) are using the COVID-19 crisis to postpone the election until 2023 and retroactively extend the terms of the committee members elected in 2019.  Members will vote on Wednesday to extend their own terms and limit the rights of voters to elect new representatives.

It is absurd to suggest that we will not be able to hold elections next year, when we are holding a primary and a general election this year.  McCabe is rushing this through in order to take advantage of the pandemic. Not every member was made aware of the proposal or the MCDO committee meeting to discuss it.  It is not available, at this writing, on the MCDO’s website. Over 500 MCDO members had only 40 minutes to discuss the changes, on one conference call wrought with technical glitches and dropped participants, including us.  The proposal is being conducted through email and text, although our experience is that not all committee members have email access. The Parliamentarian David Bander has not responded to basic procedural questions.  This is a power grab, pure and simple.

Afraid of any competition, these bosses seek to change the rules to make it harder for progressives or any challengers to run.  In an audio recording of the meeting, the Vice Chair of the Perth Amboy Democratic Organization said she is supporting this change because she and her slate “get challenged at every election” and this would make it easier for them to not face competition.  Other committee members have voiced their support for the changes for the same reason, with one person noting that the same people get elected all the time anyway.

This is an incredibly dangerous and slippery slope for democracy.  Democrats engaged in the kind of voter suppression embodied in this proposal do not represent the values or the rank and file of our party.  We would not stand for Republicans trying to cancel elections or suppress voting rights. Democrats should be fighting to expand voter involvement and access to the ballot, not showing our opponents how to limit participation.

County Committee members in NJ hold enormous power at both the county and the municipal level despite being virtually unknown to the public.  In other places, they are the neighborhood leaders for the party who help solve problems.  (See Michelle Obama’s biography, Becoming, where she talks about going out with her dad in his role as a Party committee member for a great example.)  Here, they are elected at taxpayer expense, although their meetings, records and contact information are private. Yet, they determine who gets the preferential ballot position “on the line” and they determine who is recommended in the case of vacancies.

If the Party wants to change the terms of office, then we can consider new terms for future races and let voters decide in 2021 whether to elect people for four years.  (We submit that two years is long enough; that if it is good enough for Frank Pallone and the rest of the U.S. House of Representatives, it is good enough for the Middlesex County Democrats).  As the Good Government Coalition of NJ recently wrote to all of the MCDO committee members in an email urging them to vote no, “no one in office should change their own terms.”

There is a word for people who use their office to their own benefit, enhance their own power and undermine the rights of others. It’s not democratic, it is autocratic.  Which is why lots of MCDO members have come out against this proposal; we will be voting no and we are not alone.  We do not need to do this now, however, and we urge MCDO Chairman McCabe to drop this proposal for consideration immediately.  We have plenty of time before next year’s election to have a full, open discussion of office terms and any other issues that warrant a meaningful dialogue by hundreds of elected representatives.

Laura Leibowitz, Middlesex County Democratic Organization member, Piscataway, 3-10

and Catherine Hunt, Middlesex County Democratic Organization member, Monroe, 1-4