Sorry for the lack of blogging lately, but I was on the road working.

I’m back and the first thing I learned is that Democrats in competitive South Jersey Legislative District completely lack courage.

The issue is a bill (A5207/S3361) that passed both houses back in June. The bill, according to NJ.com, bans local and private jails “from signing contracts to hold federal immigration detainees.”

According to the NJ.com piece Governor Phil Murphy unceremoniously signed the bill Friday:

Murphy, a Democrat who is running for re-election in November, quietly signed the bill the day after he returned from his trip. He did not release a statement about why he signed it.

I can only guess at the reason Murphy quietly signed the bill – my guess is that Murphy already has enough problems with possible illegal immigrants given his women’s professional soccer team’s involvement in an alleged visa fraud scheme.

Murphy obviously has a reason to be sneaky about signing the bill. His lack of courage in supporting this bill can easily be explained.

What really jumped out at me is the South Jersey Democrats in competitive races who didn’t even have the courage to vote on the bill.

According to the roll call LD8 state Senator Dawn Addiego is listed as “Not Voting,” on the Assembly side Assemblyman Ryan Peters and Assemblywoman Jean Stanfield both voted “No.”

In the competitive LD2 race Assemblyman John Armato and Assemblyman Vince Mazzeo each showed a complete lack of courage and are listed as “Not Voting.”

In LD8, where Stanfield voted no to the bill in the Assembly, she is challenging Addiego for the Seante seat. Stanfield’s Assembly runningmates are Brandon Umbra and Mike Torrissi. In LD2 Armato is running for reelection and his runningmate is Caren Fitzpatrick, an Atlantic County Commissioner. They are being challenged by former Atlantic City Mayor Don Guardian and Claire Swift, a former NJ Deputy Attorney General. On the Senate side Mazzeo is running against former Assemblyman Vince Polistina.

I can only guess the reason Addiego, Armato and Mazzeo did not have the courage to vote on a bill banning local and private jails “from signing contracts to hold federal immigration detainees,” is they feared taking a stand when it comes to illegal immigrants.

It is time for Addiego, Armato and Mazzeo to tell South Jersey voters where they stand on illegal immigration. Not voting is unacceptable!

We know where their opponents, Stanfield, Umbra and Torrissi, stand, and that’s on the side of the rule of law. If you want a better, safer South Jersey, the choices in LD8 and LD2 are clear.

Photo: Grossman for congress facebook page

It appears the Atlantic County Democrats are a bunch of keyboard warriors. Maybe that’s a good thing.

A week ahead of last night’s Atlantic County Freeholder meeting the county Democrats sent an email encouraging members to “Attend the next Freeholder meeting and tell the Republicans to withdraw their support for Seth Grossman.” To encourage this they were all over social media sharing negative press reports about Grossman.

They failed! Reports are “maybe a half dozen Democrats” showed up and they said nothing. The Grossman campaign countered with about 20 supporters in attendance.

Not only did the Atlantic County Democrats fail miserably with their planned protest of Grossman, they also failed to support Democratic Freeholder Caren Fitzpatrick in her effort to change the title of “freeholder” to “commissioner.” You may recall she believes “freeholder” is a racist and misogynistic term. According to the Grossman for Congress Facebook page the motion on the issue was tabled and fellow Democrat, Freeholder Ashley Bennett called the motion a “big waste of time.”

Based on the lack of a protest it appears Seth Grossman has weathered another round of negative press.