Rick Merkt

Non-partisan local elections will be held in 28 municipalities today, and Republican gubernatorial candidates Christopher Christie and Steven Lonegan will hold their first official televised debate tonight.

Key mayoral races will be held in Jersey City, where the popular incumbent, Jerramiah Healy, must win 50% of the vote in a five-man field to avoid a runoff; in Passaic, where newly-elected Mayor Alex Blanco faces voters for the second time in six months; in Hoboken, where David Roberts is stepping down after two terms; and in Hillside, Robbinsville, and West Windsor.

New Jersey Network (NJN) will air the debate, sponsored by Gannett New Jersey and the Philadelphia Inquirer, at 8PM.  It will be available on streaming video at njn.net.  NJN News anchor Jim Hooker will be the moderator, and NJN reporter Zach Fink will offer debate commentary on Twitter.

NJN Senior Political Correspondent Michael Aron will host a post-debate analysis on NJN2 and njn.net will Seton Hall University Prof. Joe Marbach, Rutgers University Prof. Ingrid Reed, former EPA Regional Administrator Alan Steinberg, and former State Sen. Richard LaRossa.  Marbach, Steinberg and LaRossa are unpaid contributors for PolitickerNJ.com.

A second GOP debate, sponsored by the League of Women Voters of New Jersey, will be held at 11AM on Sunday, May 17 on WABC-TV/Channel 7 in New York and on WPVI-TV/Channel 6 in Philadelphia. 

A third candidate, Assemblyman Rick Merkt (R-Mendham), will join Christie and Lonegan in two other debates: New Jersey 101.5 on May 26 at 7PM, and WOR 710 on May 27 at 4PM.

Voters in ten municipalities going to the polls to elect a Mayor: Jersey City, Hoboken, Passaic, Hillside, West Windsor, Robbinsville, Byram, Stafford, Tinton Falls, and Island Heights.  Municipal elections will also be held in Asbury Park, Avalon, Audubon Borough, Bordentown City, Cedar Grove, Collingswood, Evesham, Hackensack, Haddonfield, Lyndhurst, Millville, Monmouth Beach, Pohatcong, South Orange, Tavistock, Verona, West Cape May, and Wildwood Crest.

Tomorrow the first of two ELEC sponsored GOP gubernatorial primary debates will be held in Trenton at NJN.  Because both Chris Christie and Steve Lonegan, the GOP front runners, have raised at least $340,000 and have accepted state matching funds they are required to debate twice. 

Assemblyman Rick Merkt, the other GOP candidate in the race, has not met the matching funds threshold and is being excluded from the "official" debates.  This is wrong.  ELEC should invite Mr. Merkt to debate Chris Christie and Steve Lonegan.   

Legislators Call For Investigation Into Top Christie Adviser

TRENTON - After reading a Newark Star-Ledger report that Republican gubernatorial candidate Chris Christie’s senior political adviser, top fundraiser and beneficiary of a no-bid contract, John Inglesino, tried to bribe Assemblyman Richard Merkt to quit the Governor’s race, Assemblyman Reed Gusciora and Assemblywoman Valerie Vainieri-Huttle today called for the state Attorney General and the United States Attorney’s office to open an investigation.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Christopher Christie has $3 million cash on hand.

With about a month to go before the gubernatorial primary, former U.S. Attorney Chris Christie has $3,033,463 on hand after raising a total of $4,686,183, according to the 29 day pre-election reports published on the Election Law Enforcement Commission’s Web site.

That's more than six times what Christie's nearest rival, former Bogota Mayor Steve Lonegnan, has on hand.  Lonegan has raised almost half of what Christie has, with $2,109,093 in total, but has $481,824 on hand.  

Both Lonegan and Christie receive two-to-one matching funds from the state. 

The other Republican gubernatorial candidate, Assemblyman Rick Merkt (R-Mendham), has raised $43,900 in total -- most of which is his own money.  He's spent $41,507 and has $2,392 in cash.

But while Christie is just short of maxing out in matching funds for the primary -- having received $2.86 million from the state, which is just shy of the $3.1 million limit for the primary -- Lonegan is still eligible to receive almost $2 million more from the program.  

Democratic incumbent Gov. Jon Corzine, who is not expected to face a competitive primary challenge, has raised a total of $2.723 million to date and has $321,156 on hand.  Of the total raised, $2.05 million is Corzine's own money.  Corzine, who is likely to pour millions more of his own money into the race, declined to take matching funds.

Assemblyman Rick Merkt (R-Mendham) has raised $43,900 for his bid for the GOP nomination for Governor -- nearly all of it self-financed -- and has $2,392 cash on hand. Merkt and his family has loaned $42,400 to his campaign, and has spent $41,507. The largest disbursement of the Merkt campaign is $16,149 to his campaign consultant, Christopher Venis. He has reported no donors above the $300 reportable mark. He spent $2,500 on a website, and $366 on photography.

Joe the Plumber and Rudy Giuliani will headline events today on behalf of Republican gubernatorial candidates.  Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, aka Sam the Plumber, will attend a fundraiser for Steven Lonegan at the Deutscher Club tonight in Clark.  Tickets range from $50 to $1,000 per person.  Giuliani, the former Mayor of New York City, will join Christopher Christie on a conference call for reporters this afternoon.  Giuliani also made an appearance for Christie yesterday. Lonegan, Christie and Assemblyman Rick Merkt (R-Mendham) will all participate in a candidate forum this morning in Parsippany sponsored by the Tuesday Group.

Republican Christopher Christie has now raised enough money to receive the maximum amount of matching funds under the state's gubernatorial public financing program.  As of last week, Christie needed to file an additional $124,425 to receive the maximum $3.1 million match; sources say he did that today.

Christie still needs to raise some additional funds, about $200,000, to reach the $5 million spending cap on primary campaigns.

His chief competitor, Steven Lonegan, needed to raise an additional $955,644 to max out. 

Steve Lonegan's campaign has internal polling that shows the race for the Republican gubernatorial nomination to be a statistical dead heat, with Christopher Christie leading 36.1%-34.5%, according data obtained by PolitickerNJ.com.  Rick Merkt receives .4% of the vote.

Among likely voters, the race is within two-tenths of one percent, with Christie leading Lonegan 36.6%-36.4%.  Merkt has .5%.

The survey, conducted April 19-24, by Neighborhood Research, a firm owned by Lonegan strategist Rick Shaftan, finds that 70% of the likely Republican primary voters polled consider themselves to be conservative, while 24% say they are moderates and 4% identify themselves as liberal.  

The poll claims that "Christie and Lonegan have near universal name ID and virtually identical favorables, although a higher percentage is unfavorable or mixed on Christie.  Rick Merkt is virtually unknown."

Among likely voters, Christie has a 44%-12% favorable rating with 97% name ID.  Lonegan is at 43%-7%, with 93% name ID.  A majority of voters, the poll says, view Christie as moderate or liberal, while 56% identify Lonegan as a conservative.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Merkt, a six-term Assemblyman and former Deputy state Attorney General, views the ACLU's disclosure that Chris Christie, as U.S. Attorney, used cell phones to track the whereabouts of certain individuals without warrants, as a huge issue in the campaign for Governor.

Assemblyman Rick Merkt (R-Mendham), a candidate for the Republican nomination for Governor, today harshly criticized rival Christopher Christie for tracking the location of certain individuals through their cell phones without warrants.

"Could it be that U.S. Attorneys who avoided seeking search warrants for secret cell phone tracking knew that a lower standard of proof applies to court approvals, thus allowing prosecutors to ‘game' the judicial system and track even people for whom there is no ‘probable cause'?, Merkt asked in a statement released today. "I, for one, am not comfortable with the notion of law enforcement officials apparently taking ‘shortcuts' to get around constitutional safeguards specified in the Bill of Rights."

Christie told the Star-Ledger yesterday that the use of cell phone tracking technology was with court authorization.   

"That's the standard," Christie said. "There was no policy in place that said to us you have to get a search warrant."

Acting U.S. Attorney Ralph Marra, Jr. defended the practices of his office.

"In all instances, the United States Attorney's Office has acted and continues to act lawfully and appropriately by seeking court approval as required under the law as it exists at any given time.  That is the case with this or any other investigative technique that requires court review," Marra said on Thursday.  

But the explanations did not satisfy Merkt, a six-term legislator who served as Deputy state Attorney General under Gov. Thomas Kean.
 
"Put the shoe on the other foot for a moment," said Merkt.  "Were, say, a reporter caught using the GPS chip in Chris Christie's cell phone to secretly track his private luncheons with Republican leaders while he was still U.S. Attorney, Mr. Christie would be outraged at the invasion of his personal privacy - and he would be right."

Merkt said that the ACLU's criticism of Christie using cellular technology to track certain individuals  without a search warrant "is just the latest instance of controversial conduct by the former U.S. Attorney" and said the issue will "return to dog him in the general election" if he wins the GOP primary.  Merkt wants Christie to "provide a more credible explanation of his conduct and clear things up now, rather than leave an inviting target for the Democrats in the fall."

"I have concerns not only about the propriety of Mr. Christie's decision-making as U.S. Attorney, but also about its potential implications for the Republican Party and its viability in the fall campaign," Merkt said.

The full text of Merkt's statement follows:

After months of virtually ignoring Republican gubernatorial rival Steve Lonegan despite his taunts and negative campaign pieces, former U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie this week responded in kind.

In a new one minute radio ad, the Christie camp rips into Lonegan's record as mayor of Bogota, his campaign stances and his history of failed campaigns for various offices.

The advertisement represents a major shift in strategy for Christie, who has so far focused his criticism almost exclusively on Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine, while usually not referring to Lonegan by name in remarks that touch on the Republican primary.

Alternating between a male and female narrator, the spot first says "You're Steve Lonegan, and you have a problem" before charging Lonegan with proposing to raise property taxes while mayor of Bogota.

"Steve Lonegan: The Bergen Record says you proposed raising property taxes in your own town 15%," says the female voice.