July 24, 2007 - 12:00pm
News

Quintana and Walker will run together in 29th

Newark City Councilman At-Large Luis Quintana today confirmed that he will run with former Newark Councilwoman Bessie Walker in his independent state Senate bid. Walker had already filed as an independent candidate for the state Assembly.

Now they're joined.

"We've always been friends," says Quintana of the former councilwoman who sought re-election in 2006 in opposition to Mayor Cory Booker's council candidates and lost. Quintana ran against her that year as part of the victorious Booker team.

Quintana had run with Walker on the Mayor Sharpe James ticket in 2002, but broke with the James hold-outs last year because "I felt Booker was a positive change for Newark," he says.

Now Quintana's building an insurgent team to oppose Booker's slate of legislative candidates, including M. Teresa Ruiz, who won the Democratic Party nomination in June.

Max Pizarro is a PolitickerNJ.com Reporter and can be reached via email at max@politicsnj.com.