Analilia Mejia, the Democrat hoping to replace Gov. Mikie Sherrill in Congress, made a bone-headed decision over the weekend not to participate in a debate being planned by the League of Women Voters.
Mejia is promising voters that she’d fight for working families if elected to the House of Representatives next month. But it’s hard to take that pledge seriously if she’s not willing to spend 90 minutes or so fielding simple questions about what she wants to do if she goes to D.C. to represent the 11th Congressional District.
The decision has given Mejia’s Republican opponent, Randolph Councilman Joe Hathaway, a gift in the final weeks of the campaign. Hathaway told me voters are now being robbed of the chance to hear him and Mejia defend their positions “side by side.”
“I think what she’s afraid of is us standing next to each other and me saying very clearly what my positions have been in front of a broad audience, which is that I’m here to be a common sense, practical leader, putting the district first, whether that means standing with my party or standing against it, but I’m always here to put the district first,” he said. “That certainly doesn’t fit her narrative of just trying to run only against the president.”
I asked the Mejia campaign if I could chat with her about this, but a spokesman did not respond to my request.
To make matters worse, it’s not clear Mejia’s campaign is being honest about its reasons for bailing on the planned debate. A statement it issued Saturday said she “asked the League to commit to diversity among their proposed moderators” and they would not. But Jennifer M. Howard, president of the League of Women Voters of New Jersey, said on Sunday that the campaign asked to approve the list of potential moderators.
“Our nonpartisan stance does not permit a candidate to influence the selection of the moderator,” she said.
I’m not sure I believe that these kinds of events sway many voters, especially in federal races. But they are some of the only times candidates make appearances that aren’t fully orchestrated by their handlers, and it would be a shame if the voters in the 11th District are robbed of the chance to hear Mejia and Hathaway not only answer questions about why they should go to Congress, but also argue why their opponent should not.
What makes Mejia’s decision even more baffling is we’re talking about the League of Women Voters here. They aren’t interested in lobbing grenades at candidates to make them appear stupid in front of voters. Here are some of the questions the group’s Morris County chapter asked during its county commissioner debate in 2024:
- We received many questions that asked about resolutions being passed on issues that are beyond the purview of any commissioner board. If elected would you continue this practice and why?
- The new affordable housing mandates are of great concern to both residents and elected leaders. What would you do within the purview of the commission’s responsibility to address the issue?
- How can the commissioners assist Morris County residents to get the training and skills needed to be prepared for the workforce and hopefully keep workers in Morris County?
Having covered these kinds of debates in the past, I have no doubt the questions posed to Mejia and Hathaway would have been along these lines.
We have 24 days until the special election (Thursday, April 16). I hope wiser minds at the Mejia campaign prevail and convince her to debate Hathaway after all. Voters in the 11th District are already getting short shrift because of the abbreviated nature of this campaign and our previous governor’s decision to stick it on a Thursday; they shouldn’t also be forced to cast a ballot without ever seeing the two leading candidates debate side-by-side.
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