Professor Julia Sass Rubin has studied the impact of the line on election outcomes and policy. One of her studies found that the line conferred an average 35 percentage point advantage in primaries.
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Julia Sass Rubin
A Chance to End the Party Machine’s Undemocratic Control in New Jersey
One study by Rutgers University [written by Professor Julia Sass Rubin] found that being granted the line gives congressional candidates a 38-point advantage. Though party machines dominate other states, too, this particular method of control is unique to New Jersey. One expert described it as that “special New Jersey sauce.”
Who Picks Your Politicians?
“Elected officials are aware of the importance of the line for their reelection and the power of county party chairs to award the line,” wrote Rubin. “If an elected official does not do as the county chair wants, they can lose the line and almost surely lose the primary, ending, or severely curtailing their political careers.”
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“What Egan did, that is a manifestation of how machines operate,” said Julia Sass Rubin, a Rutgers University professor who has researched politics in New Jersey. “You just appoint your successor.”
Fighting New Jersey’s Ballot Bosses
“Elected officials are aware of the importance of the line for their reelection and the power of county party chairs to award the line,” wrote Rubin. “If an elected official does not do as the county chair wants, they can lose the line and almost surely lose the primary, ending, or severely curtailing their political careers.”
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Julia Sass Rubin, a Rutgers University professor, found in a recent study the county line gave congressional candidates in New Jersey an advantage of up to 38 percentage points. “When you give a small number of people with that amount of power, you’re opening up for corruption.”
A Ballot Blowup Is Roiling New Jersey’s Senate Race
The political leaders of all 21 counties award “the line”—which is essentially far more prominent positioning on the ballot—to their favored candidate. Everyone else appears in the margins. It sounds absurdly crude and biased, but it is highly effective: A study published last year in the Seton Hall Journal of Legislation and Public Policy [by Professor Julia Sass Rubin] found that congressional candidates appearing on the line had a 38-point advantage.
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“History suggests it’s an incredibly powerful force,” says Julia Sass Rubin. Her research shows that in the past 20 years, New Jersey incumbents running on the line finished with a record of 206 wins and only three losses.
Andy Kim Sues to Block Preferential Treatment on Ballots in Senate Race
Representative Andy Kim, a Democrat running for Senate in New Jersey against the state’s first lady, filed a federal lawsuit on Monday that seeks to redesign the ballot before June’s contentious primary election, arguing the current layout unfairly benefits candidates supported by party leaders.
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“Legislators elected with the help of leadership PACs become beholden to the leadership and more likely to vote for them as leaders, further concentrating power in their hands,” Rubin said.