02/06/2021
Hi fellow Republicans.
This is Mayor Sam Morris of Mine Hill. I am a 22 year municipal chair. Mine Hill has slightly more Dems than R's and we have won every election since 2009 with 60%+ of the vote. We know what we are doing here and we know how to win being in the electoral minority.
Morris County Election officials have the same results as this. Both freeholders/commissioners and state senators and assembly people win handily. They don't need special treatment with a county line.
State Senator Bucco and Assemblywoman Dunn even set state records this year in their wins. Tayfun Salen crushed his opponent for Freeholder by 13,000 votes. The state Democratic Party is focusing on purple counties, Phil Murphy and not red Morris County. There is NO urgency to do this now under Covid-19 restrictions. It's all a false sense of urgency.
The argument that there are hotly contested primaries is a false narrative. A few years back there were some primary races in the freeholder races. So what? That's politics and if you don't like it stay home. Since when are we so delicate and touchy? We are Republicans not Progressives in need of "safe spaces".
In 2018, now Deputy Morris GOP Chair Peter King was quoted in the New Jersey Globe saying that primary races are healthy and that's how we get new blood. Now suddenly he is rewriting the by laws, (Over Christmas and in the middle of Covid) and is arguing that we need a county line to keep people from running in primaries. Referring to Tom Mastrangelo he said - “It seems that although in 2010 it was alright for you to challenge incumbents, you believe, as an incumbent, you should not be challenged,” King said. “In fact, John Cesaro, Dave Scapicchio, and John Krickus, as well as Hank Lyons, all challenged incumbent Freeholders in 2011 and 2012, however you were silent at that time.”
Here is a link to the article https://newjerseyglobe.com/local/morris/morris-gop-fires-back-at-mastrangelo/ read it for yourself.
What the line really does Is create a wall and makes it difficult for challengers to primary incumbents. But no one should receive special treatment in Morris County so that no one can challenge their authority. Again with the safe space nonsense? No Thanks.
You are also hearing a lot of false future promises about big piles of money coming out to the municipalities. This is just nonsense. Small amounts of money come out to the different towns from any of the higher level elected officials. $500 here. $1000 there maybe. But the additional tens of thousands they receive will not be passed through to towns with tight races.
There is also currently a federal lawsuit by state democrats trying to have the line declared unconstitutional:
https://www.insidernj.com/progressives-file-suit-eliminate-party-line-ballots/
Read it for yourself
At best we should wait until that lawsuit is settled before even considering a County line because the whole thing could be moot even if it is passed.
Did you know NJ is the only state that allows a party line? Why is that? The most corrupt political state in the US allows a line. Should Morris County follow suit? I don't think we should.
The other Semi-truth that you are hearing is that the person who does not get the line can still run. Technically this is true except they are placed in a different column away from the Republican column and have to be found on the ballot. . Anyone who does not get the line only has an 8% chance of winning a primary because they are off the Republican line, hard to find and they look like they are running with the green party or some other party instead of the Republican party.
Peter King told me himself on a zoom call that he wrote and modelled these bylaw changes after Monmouth counties bylaws. This is also partially true. He modified the signature requirement. Monmouth requires less signatures to challenge. And who appointed Peter as the sole authority to rewrite out bylaws? A committee should be doing that, not 1 person.
What Peter did was added the % after some of the numbers. On the Monmouth bylaws look at section 9 and you will see it is not as being advertised because the % sign adds a lot more signatures. Here is the link: https://www.co.monmouth.nj.us/documents/112/MCRC%20By-Laws%20-%20PDF%20File.pdf See section 9.
What really bothers me about this folks is county lines can be used to punish people: Read for yourself what the Monmouth Republicans are doing to one of their own:
https://newjerseyglobe.com/legislature/monmouth-gop-mulls-dropping-dimaso-from-organization-line/
And we are copying Monmouth County bylaws?
This also happened to the Mayor of Fanwood on the Dem side. They targeted her but she beats them anyway due to her overall popularity.
I signed an affidavit to the court about the fact that the Morris GOP would not let me send out a letter like this using the system constant contact. Laura promised me she would send out my letter in opposition but she never did it and she reneged on her promise. You are receiving this because several people in the county cobbled together an email list as best we could find of people on the committee.
The proper way to do any bylaw change would be to have a bylaw committee convene. Have input from all the county committee members of topics in things that they want to have changed in the bylaws. Come out of that committee with a quality set of bylaws that have been well considered and vetted by more people than a small group of insiders who benefit.
Ask these questions of yourself:
Was I elected to pre-select who may run on the Republican Line for the registered republicans in my district?
How would those people feel if they knew you were limiting their voting options in a June Primary?
They would NOT like it. And we all know it. And they might vote you out if you vote for it.
I am firmly and politely asking you to vote this down on Saturday and then let's have a real conversation with transparency and input from all the county committee members regarding our bylaws.
As a 22 year chairman, I believe this is the way to handle this.
And by the way, what we really NEED is local municipal help in pushing back against Dems in the towns that have lost elected seats. That's the conversation we really need to have.
Have an excellent day!
Sam Morris
cell 973.479.6874
Conflicts with top Monmouth County Republican leaders have put Assemblywoman Serena DiMaso (R-Holmdel) in serious danger of losing party support for a
