Democrats in New Jersey’s 9th Congressional District chose state Sen. Nellie Pou on Thursday night to run on the November ballot, replacing Bill Pascrell, who died last week. But the closed-door process to anoint her has renewed criticism of the way party bosses choose elected officials in the state.
Pou is likely to win in the heavily Democratic district, making her New Jersey’s first Latina to serve in the House of Representatives. But despite widespread support, many Democratic activists and political reformers objected to a selection process that was dominated by the party bosses.
“There was a very good list of [candidates],” said Patricia Campos-Medina of Latina Civic Action, which advocates for more Latinas in politics, referring to three other candidates who dropped out once the heads of the county parties endorsed Pou.
“It would have been good for them to make their case to the county committee people,” she said.
New Jersey’s 9th Congressional District includes parts of Passaic, Hudson and Bergen counties. The Democratic Party organizations in those counties comprise hundreds of elected representatives from small districts within their towns, called delegates or committee members.
In the New Jersey counties where Democrats dominate the electoral map, the party bosses decide and the rank-and-file typically fall in line. The counties with large numbers of Democratic voters, such as Hudson, Essex, Bergen and Middlesex, tend to have the strongest party bosses.
In recent days, Pou scored endorsements from Passaic County Chair John Currie, Hudson County Chair Craig Guy and Bergen County Chair Paul Juliano.
“There’s always this maneuvering that happens that diminishes the possibility of the county committee people to actually hear from the candidates,” Campos Medina said. “And I think that that’s the process that we need to reform.”
Campos-Medina recently ran in the Democratic U.S. Senate primary and waged a fight against the party bosses’ influence. She and Rep. Andy Kim, who won that primary, successfully fought off the state’s most powerful party bosses’ endorsement of first lady Tammy Murphy, who eventually withdrew from the race.
Despite her frustration with the process, Campos-Medina said Pou is a good choice.
“She is very thoughtful and she has a 27-year career as a legislator, so I think she has demonstrated a steady hand and a record of legislative successes,” Campos-Medina said. “It is time to elevate women, but also women that have the credibility and the record that she has. And I think she’s ready to step up to this role.”
Pascrell won the June primary but died in office at age 87, right before the deadline to make changes to the ballot. State law requires the elected county committee members in his district to choose a replacement. The deadline was Thursday at midnight, hours after party members met to make the decision.
“That decision has ostensibly been made for them. So [committee members] lose, and voters lose,” said Micah Rasmussen, director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics. He moderated a debate on Monday night among the original four candidates: Pou, state Assemblymembers Shavonda Sumter and Benjie Wimberly, and Paterson Mayor Andre Sayegh.
Rasmussen credited Sumter as the most prepared, thoughtful and organized. However, he said, “that is not the basis on which this decision is going to be made.”
Pou, 68, worked for the city of Paterson and became a state legislator in 1997, first as an assemblymember and then as a state senator beginning in 2012, when she took the seat Pascrell vacated when he was elected to Congress. She chairs the state Senate’s Latino and majority caucuses and served on the commerce and judiciary committees.
“Look, it’s great that they picked a woman of color, a Latina, who better represents the demographics of this district,” said Henal Patel, law and policy director at the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice. After the district map was redrawn in 2021, Latinos made up a plurality — 42% — of the 9th Congressional District.
“But it really should be the people of CD-9 [Congressional District 9] who get to decide,” Patel said. “Not three party bosses. And I think that therein lies the general issue with democracy in New Jersey that we’ve often seen.”
In March, a federal judge placed a temporary hold on a major feature of New Jersey elections that allowed county political machines — typically at their bosses’ behest — to endorse candidates and place them together on one “county line” on the primary ballot. In an election that is meant to be an intraparty competition, the county line signals to voters that the unknown candidates on the line are the legitimate ones. Research shows that confers a significant advantage to those candidates because voters then associate the candidates they don’t know with the top of the ticket.
The county line’s power helped party bosses, and the party, keep state legislators in line. Rasmussen said Pou’s elevation is an example of that. Although she was rarely a lead sponsor of legislation, she was a consistently reliable Democratic vote.
“It’s called ‘wait your turn’ and it’s called ‘keep serving the party’ and being a loyal foot soldier,” Rasmussen said.
On Thursday night, after the voice vote by the committee members in Pou’s favor, the three county chairs released a statement.
“We are grateful to all the candidates who stepped forward during this process and commend them for their dedication to our district,” Currie, Juliano and Craig said. “Their contributions have enriched our democratic process, and we stand together in full support of Senator Pou as our Democratic nominee.”