How Cherry Hill progressives upset the Norcross machine

After a big electoral win, the victors can usually explain how they came out on top. But the South Jersey Progressive Democrats are having a hard time doing that.

They say they’re not sure how they soundly beat the George Norcross-backed Camden County Democratic Committee Inc. (CCDC) in last week’s primary election to become members of the county committee from Cherry Hill.

“We were just flabbergasted — couldn’t believe it,” said Susan Druckenbrod, 60, one of the three named winners in the contest.

Progressives took it with 62% of the votes in the election for the party committee.

“It was such a surprise,” said David Stahl, 42, another winning candidate.

“No one — not anybody — thought we would win,” said Rena Margulis, 67, the third victor.

Upsetting the dug-in Camden County political machine in an election is big news, running counter to expectations — “a David besting Goliath sort of thing,” according to Yael Bromberg, an attorney and lecturer in election law at Rutgers University Law School who’s been involved in litigation related to county voting.

“An earthquake,” according to Julia Sass Rubin, director of the public policy program at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers.

And because it’s such an anomaly, “it wouldn’t shock me if we’re sued by the CCDC,” said Kate Delany, head of the South Jersey Progressive Democrats, a grassroots political organization that runs candidates for office.

The major upset means the progressives will be able to make dozens of appointments to the committee, Delany said.

The CCDC disagrees.

In a statement to The Inquirer Tuesday night, CCDC chairman James Beach, who also represents Camden County in the New Jersey Senate, contended that his group, and not the progressives, would be filling the remaining 71 county committee seats.

While he didn’t mention litigation, a person with knowledge of the issue who doesn’t have authority to speak said, “Oh, it’s definitely going to court.”

How did we get here? In the Byzantine world of Camden County politics, there’s a lot to unravel.

Voters in Camden County municipalities elect representatives of the Democratic Party to a countywide party committee of about 522 people.

The number sent from each municipality is proportional to its population. Because Cherry Hill is the largest municipality in the county with more than 78,000 residents, it gets to send the largest contingent — 74 people ― to the party’s countywide committee. Those same 74 will also represent the Democratic Party within Cherry Hill on a so-called municipal committee.

The main responsibilities of the party’s countywide committee are important, experts say. They get to make political endorsements on all levels, from local office to president, and to fill vacancies in political jobs.

That last part has become controversial because of a process pejoratively known by county progressives as the “Camden County Shuffle” or the “Cherry Hill Shuffle.” What happens, progressives say, is a person holding elected office, such as county commissioner, resigns to take another political job before their term ends. The county Democratic committee then picks a replacement. When there’s a primary, that replacement runs as an incumbent, which confers a large advantage over any challenger.

“So, the Democratic machine is actually picking the person who’s running, not the voter,” said Delany.

Progressives, who until this election have tried and failed to have a say on the county committee, explain that if they had power, they’d preclude the replacement from running for office, and hold a primary with new candidates.

The shuffle, Delany said, is one of the main reasons that progressives were on the ballot last week in the first place.

The biggest change to scramble Camden County elections was the elimination of the so-called county line ballot.

Until last year, New Jersey ballots would afford preferential treatment to candidates who were endorsed by the county party. The party would be sure to list the names of the preferred candidates in one line, from president down to town council. Meanwhile, the unsupported challengers’ names would be listed “in ballot Siberia,” Delany said, away from the line.

Voters would respond by simply voting for all candidates down the line. Because the format gave endorsed candidates such an advantage, Sen. Andy Kim (D., N.J.) sued ahead of last year’s Senate primary and won in court. The New Jersey Legislature subsequently passed a bill eliminating the county line.

“The Kim lawsuit changed the world,” Rubin said.

But even with the line erased, another ballot problem arose.

In the county committee race in Cherry Hill, South Jersey Democrats sued Camden County Clerk Pamela Lampitt in April, alleging she was violating a new primary ballot law by not placing ovals next to each of the candidates’ names.

Lampitt’s office said it wasn’t technically possible to do that with 77 people running for county committee.

“Based on that,” Lampitt said in a statement Tuesday, “it was imperative for us to provide a vote for one being equal to a vote for all because it was not possible to list all 74 individual [CCDC] names on the ballot itself.”

She added that the decision to do this “was upheld in superior court and endorsed by the judge.”

That created a ballot that showed three progressives’ names (Druckenbrod, Margulis, and Stahl) next to a single oval, and 74 county Democrat names beside their own shared oval.

Ironically, even though the progressives lost the case, the ruling may have helped them win the election, Delany said.

If the progressives had won the fight over the ovals, the ballot would have included 77 names, each with an oval beside it, Delany said. Druckenbrod, Margulis, and Stahl would have been identified as progressive Democrats listed in a lineup of 74 CCDC candidates.

“Even if we won, they would’ve had 71 on the committee,” Delany said. But the ballot separation insisted on by the clerk’s office made voters choose between the three progressives and the 74 county-picked candidates.

The progressives weren’t playing to win, but to simply have a vote without the line and to give people a choice other than CCDC-picked people.

“We had no other strategy,” Margulis said.

To determine which grouping would be on top of the ballot, the progressives won a draw that placed their names above the 74 CCDC names. That could have figured into their victory, Delany and others said.

Although the progressives put just three candidates on the ballot, the organization will soon appoint its own list of 71 people, Delany said. “Nothing on the ballot said you had to put 74 names on it,” she added.

“We won, so we get to choose the committee’s makeup,” she said. “We already have 90 possibilities.”

Disputing that claim, Beach claimed that the CCDC’s slate won the remaining 71 seats and that the progressives’ victory was capped at three seats.

“Over 3,000 Cherry Hill voters voted for 74 qualified candidates that did the hard work of getting their names on the ballot. Three random candidates who could not put together a full slate of qualified candidates cannot disenfranchise over 3,000 voters. In short, we won 71 seats. The South Jersey Progressives won three seats,” Beach said.

The day after the primary, the CCDC congratulated progressives on their victory and said at the time it would reserve further comment until after the election’s certification. That’s expected to occur Monday.

But Beach’s comments to The Inquirer ahead of certification appear to set up a postprimary fight over the committee’s makeup, which will likely mean a return to the courtroom for the two Democratic factions.

If the CCDC were to sue “to prevent us from picking 71 people, that’d be a bad look — Democrats trying to overturn an election,” Delany said. “It’s very Trumpian.”

Druckenbrod agreed. “We control things now, and we make the decisions,” she said.

Ultimately, Margulis cautioned, no one is saying the progressives “defeated the machine. They have a great deal of money and power.”

“But the election does suggest that the frustration with the machine is greater than I anticipated.”