By Walter Elliott
ORANGE – The Committee for Term Limits in Orange’s recent attempt to place their public question on the Nov. 7 General Election ballot for voter consideration was not the first in a New Jersey municipality.
Citizens of Morristown and Piscataway attempted similar petition drives in 2020-21 but neither made it onto their election ballot. All three municipalities have found that attaining the minimum number of registered voters in the prescribed time a challenge.
The Morristown Voter Initiative for Term Limits, for example, began circulating petitions to sign in that central Morris County town shortly after their June 9, 2021 major party primary elections. They had submitted petitions with 330 signatures on them to the Town Clerk Margot Kaye’s office Aug. 1 with supposedly more forthcoming.
Esperanza Porras-Field, who had challenged three-term incumbent Tim Dougherty in the party on June 9, was an MVITL co-founder. A majority of participating Democratic party voters selected incumbent Tim Dougherty for mayor over Porras-Field. They also selected a pair of incumbent council members and a prospective council member on Dougherty’s slate for that year’s General Election ballot.
Porras-Field, however, had advocated municipal term limits during that Spring’s primary season. Members of Morristown Police PBA Local 43, that same season, rented a billboard truck in part to call for term limits. A resident-based Morristown Watch had also called for term limits.
MVITL called for limiting the incumbent and future mayors and council members to a pair of consecutive terms.
A crosstown check of the 2020 General Election results with the Morris County Clerk’s Office, however, found no Morristown municipal questions on the ballot. It is not known, as of press time, whether the term limit question’s petitions had failed to get the minimum signatures of registered voters.
Dougherty was re-elected to his fourth term. His incumbent council team was also re-elected.
Piscataway’s 2020 term limit campaign ran concurrently with that year’s COVID-combined spring municipal, school board and party primary elections.
The Dems On Your Side team, led by mayoral candidate Bill Irwin, also fielded three prospective Township Council members in the primary. They were going up against then-three-term incumbent Brian C. Wahler and three sitting council members.
DOYS advocated “Term limits for elected officials – no more career politicians!” That line was the seventh of 28 platform points for a more open, equitable and greener municipal government.
Irwin and his challengers were citing Wahler’s then-12 years as Piscataway mayor. His team appears to also be pursuing the establishment of a term limit ordinance once they are elected.
Piscataway’s term limits public question referendum, like with Morristown, never made that year’s General Election ballot.
“Residents may circulate petitions by state law,” recalled Piscataway PIO Gene Wilk to “Local Talk” Sept. 5. “I don’t recall signed petitions reaching the clerk’s desk.”
A majority of participating Piscataway voters re-elected Wahler and a slate of four incumbent council members. Wahler and three of the four incumbents are seeking re-election again Nov. 7. One councilman, who was appointed in 2021 when the fourth council member was promoted to Middlesex County Commissioner, is looking for his first elected term.
