MONTCLAIR – Mikie Sherrill was detailing ways to fight Donald Trump’s agenda through litigation while reviewing the good news of the week – Cory Booker’s marathon Senate speech and the victory of a liberal judge in Wisconsin’s judicial election.
This was a Thursday evening “town hall” and about 400 people were gathered at an auditorium on the Montclair State University campus.
She spoke a day after Donald Trump unveiled multiple tariffs on imports and a few hours after the Stock Market responded by dropping more than 1,600 points. And that drop continued early Friday.
The tariffs, she said, are “going to hurt everyday people.”
We were just a few minutes into things when a man rose – “Andrew from Westfield’ – and said he agreed with how she was fighting Trump in Washington.
So, why are you running for governor? Why not stay in the House and keep doing what you are doing?
There was a smattering of applause.
Sherrill probably knew the question was coming.
She spoke about how she has been rated by some Congressional-watchers as the “most bipartisan member” of the House.
“That has been my reputation in Congress,” she said. “Not standing for the status quo, not afraid to speak truth to power. And, so, that is why I have stood up to run for governor.”
Her answer prompted louder applause than the question.
With that point made, we moved on.
This was a friendly crowd. Most on hand seemed to support Sherrill.
In answering a question about the current climate, she said she thinks Democrats are finally becoming unified around a central premise – the Administration is hurting the economy.
Of course, that’s not good enough.
Democrats are in the minority – not by much, but in the minority still the same.
So, as Sherrill said, they need some Republicans to step up – “a few good men, and women.”
That may not be a totally lost cause. Mitch McConnell, the former Senate Majority Leader, just voted with three other GOP senators and all the Dems in opposition to Trump’s tariffs. That vote, though, was largely symbolic. That measure is unlikely to pass the House.
Digressing a bit, one questioner asked about “corruption” in politics.
Sherrill criticized the Citizens United Supreme Court decision, which allows groups to spend unlimited amounts of money on behalf of a candidate. She acknowledged that she, herself, raises a lot of campaign cash but suggested that at the moment, there’s no other way to do things.
More locally, she spoke of the demise of traditional newspapers and how town councils and school boards are no longer regularly covered. Given the fact, so many councils tend to be all-Democratic or all-Republican, she said lack of a “watchdog” can mean corruption goes unchecked.
The congresswoman was right-on. Corporate-owned daily newspapers, at least in New Jersey, have long abandoned their responsibility to cover local news. But that’s a story for another day.
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