The following is a letter to the editor from several Hoboken Democratic Committee members:

According to the Democratic National Committee’s platform, “Democrats believe we must fight to preserve the essence of the longest standing democracy in the world: a government that represents the American people, not just a handful of powerful and wealthy special interests.” While this represents the position of the Democratic Party nationally, the principal of fair elections is just as vital to local municipal elections. The fear that “Big money is drowning out the voices of everyday Americans, and we must have the necessary tools to fight back and safeguard our electoral and political integrity,” is as true in Hoboken as it is in Washington.

We are fortunate that the City of Hoboken has robust campaign finance laws that help to safeguard the integrity of our local elections, including strict pay-to-play laws that keeps our City government honest. On Thursday, September 26, the Hoboken City Council will be considering those very same laws and will decide whether to continue to enforce and respect the current local law.

As a community, we must collectively urge the Council to enforce our reasonable current campaign finance and pay-to-play laws to maintain a fair playing ground and set reasonable rules for all candidates for local office to follow. Hoboken’s municipal elections are coming in November. Candidates have already collected and submitted petitions, and ballot positions have been assigned. All this has happened under the current campaign finance law. Now, only weeks from the election, changing those laws would be tantamount to changing the rules mid-game. Such an outcome would be unacceptable and antithetical to democratic norms.

Please come out to the Council meeting on September 26, 7pm, to demonstrate your support for upholding and enforcing Hoboken’s existing campaign finance and pay-to-play laws.

Respectfully,

Tara Mullins, HDC Member
Kurt Thoens, HDC Member
Vera Sirota, HDC Member
Martin Anderson, HDC Member
David Tornabene, HDC Member
James Castiglione, HDC Member
Eileen Carvalho, HDC Member
Jennifer Brennan, HDC Member
Seth Abrams, HDC Member
Lisa Russo, HDC Member
Bruce Prussak, HDC Member
Jonathan Otto, HDC Member
Alyse Battaglia, HDC Member
Patricia Kelly, HDC Member
Anthony Rios, HDC Member
Dasha Yerokhin, HDC Member
Ava Schoellnast, HDC Member
Christine Repella, HDC Member
Joe Quintero, HDC Member
Marla Decker, HDC Member
Ada Whitney, HDC Member
Julianne Cort, HDC Member
Michael Watson, HDC Member
Layton Lassiter, HDC Member
Stewart Mader, HDC Member
George DeStefano, HDC Member
Rachel Hodes, HDC Member
Antonio Grana, HDC Member