by Gordon Haas

On August 13, New Jersey will hold a special primary election to choose the Republican and Democratic candidates for the Senate seat left vacant by the passing of Senator Frank Lautenberg. An important mandate of the non-partisan Community Relations Committee (CRC) is to ensure that voters are well educated on the positions of all of the candidates on the issues that are our priority areas of concern.
 
The Republican and Democratic parties will each choose their one candidate who will run for the Senate seat in the October elections. Choosing the candidate for Senate and going out to vote is very important for our community. The Republican primary is more straightforward as there are just two candidates. The Democratic primary is more complicated as the four candidates have all been good friends to our Federation and community, and supportive of our public policy causes overall.

I am writing this blog to urge each of you to take the time to be informed on the positions and nuances of each candidate.

To this end, the CRC asked each of the candidates to answer seven questions on a range of priority issues for our community. We encourage you to read their responses to understand the differences between them.

The Democratic response were published in the August 1 New Jersey Jewish News; the Republican responses will appear in the August 8 issue. All of the responses can be found on our CRC webpage — www.jfedgmw.org/crc. Given the importance of casting this vote, I again strongly encourage you to take the time to read these responses and to go out and vote.

We also encourage you to forward these responses to your friends, colleagues, and family that vote in New Jersey, and share the articles on Facebook. You can also like all the candidates on Facebook to learn more about them.

Most of all, let the candidates know of your interest in their campaign. All of the non-winning candidates will continue to hold their current elected offices after this primary.

This Senate vote is a very important one for the Jewish community, Israel, and the safety and security of the American people. Make sure to make your vote count.