BY TOM CAIAZZA
Staff Writer
METUCHEN – A letter sent to registered Democrats in Metuchen on April 25 from the Metuchen Democratic Organization supporting Councilman Tim Dacey for mayor may have violated the Election Law Enforcement Commission’s (ELEC) rules on political identification statements.
The letter, written and signed by Metuchen Democratic Municipal Chairwoman Beverly Passantino, does not contain the required “paid for by …” identification language even though it was paid for by the organization and explicitly supported Dacey for mayor and contained a veiled criticism of Tom Vahalla’s primary challenge.
Passantino said she didn’t believe the letter required the “paid for by …” language, but said she planned to report the costs of the mailing in the organization’s quarterly report to ELEC. The letter, she said, was never meant to be political, citing that the first two-thirds of the letter contained a synopsis of the choosing process thus far and a tribute to outgoing mayor Edmund O’Brien, who chose not to run for re-election.
“It’s not a piece of campaign literature,” Passantino said. “It’s an informational letter to Democrats in Metuchen.”
However, in the final two paragraphs of the letter, Passantino calls on Democrats in Metuchen to “rally behind Tim Dacey in this ‘primary fight,’ ” and made a veiled reference to primary challenger Councilman Tom Vahalla, saying that his challenge will do harm to the party.
“One of the people who has had no problem accepting our support in the past when it was in his favor,” Passantino wrote in the letter, “has refused to accept the will of the organization and is seeking to cause long-lasting damage to what should be a unified party to fight Republicans in November.”
The final line of the letter implored Democrats to vote for Dacey and council candidates Alan Grossman and Beatrice Moskowitz in the June 5 primary.
According to the ELEC Compliance Manual for Political Party Committees (PPC), PPCs are required to label all political communications, including form letters, with the “paid for by” language, with few exceptions.
Those exceptions are bona fide news articles or editorials from legitimate news outlets, small ephemera items such as buttons or combs bearing the candidate’s name, or advertising space under the cost of $50.
Metuchen Democratic Organization Vice Chairman Erik Wong said that the letter, which he claims he had not seen or been made aware of before it was released, should have contained the “paid for by …” language.
Wong said that had he seen the letter, he would have used the language even if there was a question as to whether it required it or not.
“I would have put it in anyway because it wouldn’t have hurt,” Wong said.
Vahalla called the letter’s content “bogus,” saying that a primary election is democracy in action and limiting the playing field of possible candidates because the organization chose someone else is not fair to the voters.
He also said that it would not hurt the party.
“I think it is going to help the party rather than hurt the party,” Vahalla said, “because more people are getting involved and more people are voting.”
Dacey had no other comment on the letter except to say that the letter was sent out supporting him because he was the candidate endorsed by the Metuchen Democratic Organization and that it is the organization’s prerogative to support him.