Who Comes Next After Booker at City Hall?

The death Monday of respected liberal lawmaker Sen. Frank Lautenberg may have some consequences in Newark, including changing the dynamics of a race for a vacant council seat or—less likely but possible—touching off a court battle to determine who succeeds Mayor Cory Booker.  

“It’s going to get crazier even quicker,” said West Ward Councilman Ron Rice, echoing other officials who said Tuesday that politically, Newark could be in for a very bumpy ride over the next several months.

Booker late last year all-but-officially announced his intention to run for Lautenberg’s seat in 2014, ending his run as mayor with two terms. The election for Lautenberg’s Senate seat will be held in November 2014 and the mayoral election will be held a few months earlier, in May.

But Lautenberg’s death at the age of 89 has likely changed Booker’s timeline. With a year and a half to go on Lautenberg’s current term, Gov. Chris Christie announced Tuesday that there will be an August primary followed by an Oct. 16 election for Lautenberg’s seat.  The winner of that election would also be able to seek a full term in November 2014.

Booker, who has enjoyed a strong showing in the polls, could run for the unexpired term and then go on to seek election to a full-six year term next year, although his camp Tuesday declined to say whether the popular mayor would pursue that course.  

"For several months now, Mayor Booker has been taking the steps necessary to run, but he will make an official announcement at the appropriate time,” a spokesman for Booker’s campaign said Tuesday.

But should Booker become a U.S. senator this year, an interim mayor would have to be selected to fill his seat until July 2014, when the winner of the May election officially assumes office.

In virtually any other year, what would happen next would be fairly straightforward: under Newark’s form of government, the nine-member municipal council would vote to select a replacement. If no candidate were to receive at least a five-vote majority, then the council president would automatically be elevated to the role of acting mayor.  

Here, however, is where it gets tricky.

After Rep Donald Payne died in office last year, his son, Donald Payne Jr., who was serving as president of the municipal council, ran for and won his father’s Congressional seat, creating a vacancy at city hall.

A contender for council president was Anibal Ramos, the North Ward councilman, who had been the council’s vice president. Ramos, however, could not be appointed council president due to a perfectly even split among the remaining eight members of the governing body, a deadlock Booker tried to break last November by appointing a Newark school advisory board member named Shanique Speight.

Ramos’ supporters on the council backed Speight, while the other four were opposed. Following a wild council session during which police used Pepper spray on irate members of the audience and a court ruling rejecting Speight’s appointment, the council seat remains vacant until a special election in November.  Ramos, meanwhile, remains the “acting”—as opposed to the actual—council president.  

An official with the city clerk’s office said distinction, by law, means Ramos cannot become acting mayor by default and that there currently is no council president.

Nor does the council impasse seem likely to be broken in the near future.

“I’m pretty certain the council can’t come to a conclusion the way the council is currently constituted,” Rice said.

Upping the stakes even more, Ramos is one of two men now serving on the municipal council who had already planned to run for mayor in 2014. The other is South Ward Councilman Ras Baraka, while a third candidate, Shavar Jeffries, an attorney and former school board advisory member, launched his campaign a few weeks ago.

Baraka did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday. Ramos and Jeffries, meanwhile, declined to address the issue directly.

“I think that’s a legal question the lawyers are going to have to figure out. We’re just focused on our campaign, on making Newark safer and improving job opportunities for our residents,” Jeffries said.

Ramos “is ready to lead the city of Newark if and when the time comes,” a Ramos campaign spokesman said.  

The situation could play out in a number of ways. If Booker should lose in October or fail to win the August primary, then he could simply serve out the rest of his term, rendering the issue moot. If Booker wins in October, the council would have 30 days, or until mid-November, to vote on an acting mayor.

That deadline would come a few weeks after Newarkers vote for a ninth council member, the potentially tie-breaking vote regarding the council presidency and the acting mayor. John James, the son of former mayor Sharpe James, has expressed interest in running. Should James be elected, the scales could tip in favor of Baraka, a fellow South Ward resident. Alternatively, Rice said, the Ramos camp could seek out a candidate likely to support him.

Another possibility, although a remote one, is that Booker steps down as mayor sooner, well before a ninth council member is elected, leaving Newark with no clear successor. Ramos could claim the mantle but would almost certainly be challenged in court.

However, if Booker were to step down as mayor before Sept. 1, a special election would have to be scheduled, the clerk's office official said. That means selecting Newark's interim mayor would be out of the hands of the council entirely and the voters would decide.

Christie’s chosen Oct. 16 election date may not stand. Christie, who himself is running for re-election, could also be challenged in court, by Democrats who want both the gubernatorial and senate races decided on the same day this November. Observers believe Booker’s presence on the ticket in November would result in increased turnout among black voters also likely to support Christie’s challenger, state Sen. Barbara Buono.  

"Earlier this year, the governor cited money as to why he vetoed early voting. However, despite costing millions of dollars, Gov. Christie made the cynical and arrogant decision to call a special election in October,” said David Turner, a Buono spokesman. “His choice made it clear that he does not care about wasting taxpayer money. Moreover, by holding two elections within weeks of each other, the governor will needlessly disenfranchise voters. He should change his decision and hold the election on Nov. 5."

But whatever the consequences may be statewide and nationally, in Newark, Rice said, the uncertainty could mean that politics will trump policy at a time when the city faces pressing issues, including passing the budget and taking over the operations of the city’s tens of thousands of acres of watershed  property, which until recently had been managed by an outside agency.

“It’s frustrating because we have work to do,” Rice said. “None of this bodes well for us getting any work done.”