Senator Andy Kim will meet with the New Jersey Assembly’s freshman class next Monday, a meeting that comes amid Kim’s escalating battle with some of New Jersey’s most powerful Democratic bosses.
The virtual meeting is set to include the Assembly’s 12 incoming Democrats; no freshman Republicans were elected during last month’s blue wave election.
“Senator Kim is excited to be meeting with Assembly freshmen,” Kim spokesperson Anthony DeAngelo said. “He’s already talked with Governor-elect Sherrill and Lt Gov-Elect Caldwell, and is continuing to meet our state’s leaders stepping up into new roles.”
Politico first reported on the planned meeting earlier today.
Last week, Kim tried to testify at a State Senate committee meeting against a bill targeting the state comptroller’s office, but was blocked for hours by Chairman Jim Beach (D-Oaklyn). Though the bill has since been pulled by Senate Democratic leaders, Kim has nevertheless launched an effort to unseat Beach and other like-minded legislators during their next re-election campaigns in 2027.
The meeting with the freshman assemblymembers was in the works long before that blowup, but many of the incoming Democrats seem likely to agree with Kim on the merits regardless.
All 12 of the assemblymembers-elect had to get past tough primary or general elections (or both) in order to win their seats, a stark contrast with the many legislators over the years who have essentially been handed free passes to Trenton by party leaders. Nine of them defeated an incumbent – five of them in the primary, five in the general – and five of them ran primary campaigns that lacked the official backing of the local county party.
That may make the freshman class quite a bit more restive than most, though Kim’s office said the senator intends for the meeting to focus primarily on more down-to-earth policy concerns.
“He previously spoke to [the assemblymembers-elect] individually but wanted to bring the group together to discuss federal and state government partnerships on critical issues like infrastructure and public transit, tech innovation, education, good governance, and health care,” DeAngelo said. “He also wanted to align offices on coordination on constituent services work to help our shared constituents.”
