HOBOKEN AND BEYOND – Ballots will be printed shortly for the June Democratic primary election in the 33rd legislative district, despite a suit by five Hoboken residents to keep candidate Carmelo Garcia off the ballot.
The 33rd District includes Hoboken, Union City, Weehawken, and parts of Jersey City.
The five residents at first won their case to keep Garcia off the ballot, but their victory was overturned a week ago. Then, they challenged Garcia’s victory at the appellate level in the New Jersey Supreme Court. But on Tuesday, the court denied the motion to hear the case.
The plaintiffs argued against Garcia’s candidacy because some of his salary as director of the Hoboken Housing Authority comes from federal funding. Certain state and federal laws could prevent him from running in that case.
But a judge decided that recent changes in federal law would allow Garcia to run, even though the state law hadn’t caught up.
Garcia is backed by the Hudson County Democratic Organization, and running on a slate with Union City Mayor and State Sen. Brian Stack and Jersey City Deputy Mayor Raj Mukherji.
Garcia will face off against Hoboken City Councilman-at-Large Ravinder “Ravi” Bhalla and several others.
Garcia said Tuesday that he felt “vindicated” and looked forward to going forth and arging the issues in the campaign.
Flavio Komuves, the attorney for the five plaintiffs, said, “I’m very proud of my clients for taking a principled stand against business as usual in Hudson County.”
See links to earlier stories below.