ELEC investigating allegations against Rahway Dems

Letter from ELEC acknowledging investigation.

New Jersey's Election Law Enforcement Commission (ELEC) has begun an investigation of allegations against the Rahway Democratic City Committee concerning missing reports for the 2006 municipal election cycle.

Bryan Desrochers, who was a Republican candidate for a 22nd District Assembly seat (Plainfield's district) filed the complaint with ELEC in July.

Desrochers complains that neither Mayor James Kennedy, nor his running mates Sal Mione, Nancy Saliga, and James Baker filed ANY of the state-required campaign finance reports.

This is a serious charge and could result in penalties of many thousands of dollars against the Rahway City Committee and the individual candidates.

The letter of complaint states that --

No Election Cycle reports were filed for the 29-day pre-election deadline, the 11-day pre-election deadline, and the 20-day post-election deadline. In addition, the Rahway Democratic City Committee failed to file any report in January as is required for all Political committees in the State of NJ.

This is not the first time Rahway Dems have come to the attention of ELEC.

Rahway Mayor James Kennedy.

In 1997, Kennedy's aide was caught sending out letters in support of Jim McGreevey's gubernatorial bid on City time. That incident resulted in a letter of reprimand from the Union County Prosecutor.

With all the development going on in Rahway, the suspicion of some is that a record of donations would indicate pay-to-play involvement. This may be the case, but most likely there will be no provable quid pro quo 'smoking gun.'

That does not mean the ELEC fines may not be substantial.

Keep an eye on this one.

-- Dan Damon

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