Corruption fighter McCormick is leading progressive primary slate

Fresh off her dazzling performance in last year's primary election for U.S. Senate, Democrat Lisa McCormick is New Jersey's leading progressive and the closest thing the Garden State has produced to compare with Senator Bernie Sanders or New York's young Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

McCormick, like Sanders, has been a passionate champion of universal health care and an outspoken critic of corporate greed. Like Ocasio-Cortez, McCormick is an ardent advocate for a transition to a clean energy economy, which she says is the only way to prevent a disaster from the deadly impact of climate change.

Those hot button issues are important to McCormick, but she is talking about more obscure and mundane matters as a candidate for the Democratic nomination to become the next Union County Surrogate on June 4 and yet there are also appeals to voters who are tired of corruption or advocates of democracy that lend urgency to her message.

"If I were not on the ballot, Union County voters would have no choice in this election," said McCormick. "There is something very dangerous about being deprived of options, because that opens to gate to complacency and corruption, and leaves unchecked the power of government."

McCormick, who became one of the nine New Jersey Democrats to earn the greatest number of primary election votes in the last 25 years, is now competing against a 20-year incumbent who is the son of the last Republican mayor of Elizabeth.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and New Jersey Democrat Lisa McCormick, seen here greeting voters at a campaign event, share many of the same bold progressive policy positions and both are known for courageously taking on powerful political incumbents within their own party.

Last year, she was the only New Jersey Democrat to challenge the incumbent U.S. Senator who had been indicted for bribery and corruption by the Obama administration's Justice Department.

"Every vote matters," said McCormick. "The people we elect to do government jobs are there to represent you, to take care of important matters for you and to make sure ordinary people are not cheated but when 'politics as usual' gets too cozy, corruption runs rampant."

McCormick said her candidacy is a chance for citizens to eliminate corruption that has touched the obscure county office she is running to take away from the incumbent, who controls millions of dollars in public trusts but has been lax about enforcing oversight that ensures lawyers do not rob widows and orphans.

Lisa McCormick is seeking the Democratic nomination for Union County Surrogate, on the Column C Democrats United for Progress slate with freeholder candidates Wilma Campbell of Plainfield, Alex Lospinoso of Linden and Sylvia Turnage of Roselle.

The Column C Democrats have been endorsed by Linden Mayor Derek Armstead, who fired state Senator Nicholas Scutari as his city's municipal prosecutor in response to chronic absenteeism during the last two years the political boss had the $85,000 part time job.

Lospinoso pointed out that Armstead is paying a political price for replacing the missing power broker, eliminating the city's garbage tax and lowering property taxes two years in a row, but the Column C Democrats United for Progress slate represents the view that government reform is both popular and progressive.

"Our strength has always been the number of people who support our campaign. Not the size of the checks they can afford to write," said McCormick. "By working for the 99 percent instead of the tiny few that benefit by cheating taxpayers, rigging the system and depriving voters of actual choices, we are breathing life into our democracy and that is a victory in itself."

McCormick said her website at www.lisamccormick.org has ways that citizens can get involved or learn more.

"Ordinary citizens who want to run for elected office can get help, volunteers can be assigned tasks, donations may be submitted and there is news and information about our candidacy at www.lisamccormick.org so I invite everyone to take time to check it out," said McCormick, who said she is once again waging a people-powered campaign that refuses corporate contributions, NRA money or funds from the fossil fuel industry.

Among the sharp contrasts between McCormick's team and the establishment Democrats, Column A candidates have been silent over events in Elizabeth, where the state Attorney general took over law enforcement operations and forced out a police director who used racist and misogynistic language in dealings with employees.

McCormick has been a champion for justice, who said Mayor J. Christian Bollwage failed to uphold his duty to citizens by the atrocious betrayal of America’s most fundamental promise of Justice for all.

Bollwage would not fire Police Director James Cosgrove after the Union County Prosecutor learned form 20 department emeployees that he used the “N-word” or the “C-word” in addition to allowing excessive police force, sexual harassment, and other misconduct for more than 20 years. The corrupt police director was forced out by Attorney General Gurbir Grewal.

McCormick has also taken Column A candidates to task for enacting politician pay hikes that cost taxpayers $15 million a year while ignoring the need for a greater minimum wage.

Union County Surrogate James Lacorte -- who McCormick is challenging -- received a $24,000 pay hike under a law supported by four Assembly members running on column A, James Kennedy, Linda Carter, Jamel Holley and Annette Quijano. That measure, sponsored by Union County political boss Nicholas Scutari, also granted $34,000 pay hikes to all members of Governor Phil Murphy's cabinet just five months after they were hired at salaries of $141,000.

Hundreds of judges, prosecutors and other elected officials, such as sheriffs and county clerks, alo got hefty raises but the state's minimum wage remains $8.85 an hour and it won't increase to $10 until July. McCormick says those in top jobs can wait for pay hikes but nobody who works 40 hours should be forced to live in poverty.

Voters will head to the polls on June 4 to select nominees who will be on the November ballot but Republicans have not won a Union County election since 1994.