Republican voters in the 3rd District who received their sample ballots in the past few days need to take a close look at the contested race for Republican Committee.
The so-called County Comittee also functions as the local committee. Committee members run the local chapter of the party and are responsible for finding and supporting appropriate candidates, fundraising, and generally raising awareness of the party and its goals. Voters see only those candidates running in their district so, for example, voters in the 5th district will not see the candidates for 3rd and vice-versa.
For many years, the 3rd voting district has been represented by long-time residents Maureen and Raymond Miller. The Millers are ardent Republicans who are willing to listen to issues that residents in their district may have. They are active members of the County Committee and, with their leadership, have been instrumental in delivering Spring Lake Heights its first Republican mayor in almost 30 years.
A look at the ballot in the 3rd district shows that the Millers are being contested this year, contest by Katherine Kelsey along with local gadfly John Lewis. Both are newcomers without any known experience witht the Republican organization. Lewis, a retired fireman from Hoboken who pulls an annual pension of over $70,000, has run in the past for almost every other local elected post. Additionally, during the 2008 Presidental elections, he openly supported now-President Barack Obama, a rather odd choice for a supposed Republican.
Lewis is well-known to attendees of school board meetings, where he has argued incessantly against putting money towards education for years. He also led local efforts to bring down the fire district and the Board of Fire Commissioners, a move which removed the resident’s ability to vote directly on the fire budget.
What is particularly interesting about Lewis’ candidacy is his placement on the ballot on the Republican party line.
No one can be denied the ability to run for elected office. When two candidates petition to run for the same seat, the chairperson of the local committee and the chairperson of the County committee confer and choose the candidate they wish to list on the party line. A decision is then made to either include the other candidates on the same line, or push them to a separate line.
Conventional party wisdom assumes that loyal voters are also uneducated, and will simply go straight down the party’s column and click every candidate, regardless of record. In fact, locals in Spring Lake Heights report they are coached by phone every election season to “just go down the party line” and, in fact, have been lead to believe they CANNOT vote for anyone else.
In the case of Lewis and Kelsey vs. the Millers, no one appears to be quite sure how the Lewis/Kelsey slate was put on the party line and the Millers moved to the next column.
When asked, SLH Republican Chairwoman Sara King noted that she had never been contacted by the Monmouth County Republican Committee as to her choice for the positions. In fact, Chairwoman King reports that she only learned about the ballot positioning from Bertha Summick, the Monmouth County Clerk of Elections, when King called with other election business.
A call to Monmouth County Republican Committee headquarters was returned by Adam Majorie, executive director of the Committee. Majorie was unaware of the situation or of who at the County level had made the selection and indicated he would look into it. As of this posting, heightsonline has not yet received an answer.
County Chairman Joseph Oxley was unavailable for comment. Oxley recently received a Supreme Court nomination from Governor Chris Christie; Majorie indicated that due to this nomination, Oxley is no longer able to have any political involvement, even commenting on anything that occurred prior to his nomination.
heightsonline will continue to follow this story in the run-up to the June 5 primary. Any of our readers wishing to be interviewed as to their feelings on the 3rd District race are invited to e-mail us at: SLHeights@gmail.com