KINNELON – Mikie Sherrill already is thinking about the judgment of history. For the second Monday in two weeks, Sherrill was urged to back impeaching Donald Trump. The impassioned plea came from Gary Schraft of Rockaway Township who said he was part of the weekly Fridays with Frelinghuysen demonstrations outside the then-congressman’s Morristown office. It was those protests that symbolized Democratic activism against the seemingly invincible Frelinghuysen.

“People came out and elected you,” Schraft said at a town hall-like event in borough hall. “We want change.”

And to him, that means impeaching the president. The same theme was raised a week ago in Democratic-leaning Verona, where it drew cheers from the audience.  Not so much in Kinnelon, a locale Trump carried in 2016 by about 1,400 votes. There were a few boos in the crowd of more than 100 as Schraft talked up impeachment.

Sherrill’s answer the last two Mondays boils down to this. Ongoing investigations into various aspects of the president’s conduct still need to be concluded. Additionally, she doesn’t want any impeachment proceedings to overshadow the work Congress needs to do on gun law reform, taxes and getting a new rail tunnel built under the Hudson.

Schraft reached back more than four decades to talk about how the impeachment of Richard Nixon drew Republican support when it finally got going. His point was that the same thing can happen now. Maybe.
In a conversation after the event, Sherrill said impeaching a democratically-elected president should not be done unless evidence overwhelmingly demands it. That led her to wonder about how this period will be judged 10 years from now. Her apparent point if one listened “between the lines” was that any impeachment would be viewed harshly unless it had bipartisan support. And that is not the case today.

Sherrill was welcomed to Kinnelon’s cozy borough hall by Mayor James Freda, who said the congresswoman seemed a bit apprehensive when he initially invited her to the Republican-leaning borough.

If that was the case, it wasn’t evident as Sherrill comfortably fielded questions on climate change, guns, taxes and from the mayor himself, a question on why the borough doesn’t have its own zip code. Talk about proving the old line that all politics is local.

Sherrill seemed most frustrated at the Senate’s inaction on a number of gun laws passed by the House,. among them stronger background checks and closing loopholes. She said she hoped GOP senators in “purple” states will be forced to pressure Senate Leader McConnell to consider the House’s legislation.

Sherrill also backs a federal ban on semi-automatic weapons, but the prospects for that appear dim in the Senate as well, There is such a ban in New Jersey under state law.

One of those questioning Sherrill was Keith Dakin of Mendham who boldly told the congresswoman he hopes to run against her next year.  He brought up the Katie Brennan case and asked Sherrill her feelings on a “gag order” imposed by the Phil Murphy camp on campaign workers.

For those not following Trenton news all that closely, Brennan claims she was raped by Al Alvarez while both were involved with Murphy’s gubernatorial campaign in  2017.  A special Legislative committee, which looked into the case, faulted how the Murphy Administration handled it.

Still, this is purely a state issue.

Sherrill said simply that she opposes gag orders.