What is the Municipal Committee?
Purpose: In New Jersey, the Democratic and Republican parties are organized by statute by County. Each municipality within a county is divided into voting districts which contain a few hundred residents each. Leonia has six voting districts.
In the Primary Election of every even-number year (e.g. June 2010), Democratic voters in each voting district select a Committee Man and a Committee Woman to represent them in the County party organization. When you are elected to the Democratic Municipal Committee in Leonia you become a member of the County organization.
The County Committee people within each municipality select a Municipal Chair and Vice Chair. The selection is made in a mandatory January meeting. All the County Committee people within a particular county elect the County Chair and Vice Chair (often referred to as the party “bosses,” particularly in our neck of the woods). So when you become a Committee person you have an impact on the direction of the County organization as well as municipal life in Leonia.
Duties: The Committee should be meeting on a regular basis, discussing issues, and liaising with Democratic Council members on those issues.
The Committee members serve as delegates to the annual County Convention (usually held in March) where endorsement votes are held for County, State and National offices. The Leonia delegation consists of the 12 members of the Committee, the Democratic Mayor and Democratic Council members, and a number of backup delegates. The Committee meets a few weeks before the Convention to select the backup delegates.
On the local level, a key function is that the Committee interviews and selects candidates for Mayor and Council. By statute, the candidates endorsed by the Committee should get to run “in the column” with the Regular Democratic Organization on the Primary ballot. “The column” is also known as “the party line.”
County Committee members should seek to become familiar with the voters in their district and be prepared to answer questions or to refer concerns to Council members.
Committee members take part in such nuts and bolts activities as helping with the election campaign, working on GOTV (Get- Out-the-Vote) efforts, and offering other campaign and election support. They should have input into the issues stressed in the campaign and be apprised of the activities of the campaign. In short, Municipal Committees are important for many reasons. They are the “eyes and ears” of the party on the local level, but even more important, they can be the most grass roots representatives of Leonia’s citizens.
Meet Leonia's Democratic Municipal Committee
