NJ Gov. Murphy likely to appoint one of his closest allies to serve out Menendez Senate term

Brigid Bergin

and

Nancy Solomon

Published Aug 15, 2024

Modified Aug 15, 2024

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New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy

Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images

Brigid Bergin

and

Nancy Solomon

Published Aug 15, 2024

Modified Aug 15, 2024

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New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy is expected to appoint his former chief of staff, George Helmy, to fill the U.S. Senate seat soon to be vacated by Sen. Bob Menendez, according to a source familiar with the decision who asked not to be named because they weren't authorized to discuss it.

Helmy, 44, is well known in New Jersey Democratic political circles. He previously worked for two other Democratic senators from the state, Frank Lautenberg and Cory Booker. And he’s close to Murphy’s inner circle. The appointment — first made public in multiple media reports late Wednesday — is drawing scrutiny from political analysts in a state that's known for its culture of political patronage, and after the governor already unsuccessfully tried to help his own wife win the Senate seat.

“There’s no one that is closer to Gov. Murphy,” said Micah Rasmussen, director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University. “I am certain that he feels that George Helmy is most responsible for his political success [as the person who] put together his political and governmental operation as his chief of staff — there’s zero daylight between them.”

Murphy’s office declined to comment. Helmy could not yet be reached for comment.

High-profile corruption paved the way for Helmy’s appointment. The seat opened up when Menendez announced he would resign effective Aug. 20, after facing mounting pressure from colleagues. The three-term senator was convicted on 16 counts in federal court last month in connection with a corruption scheme that involved favor-trading with the Egyptian government, enriching him and his wife.

Earlier this election season, Murphy leveraged his political capital to back his wife, Tammy Murphy, in a primary for the Senate seat. Soon after she announced, top elected Democrats and party bosses endorsed her, but she suspended her campaign in late March after four months, just a day ahead of the filing deadline to appear on the Democratic primary ballot in June.

Murphy’s chief competitor, Rep. Andy Kim, had filed a federal lawsuit objecting to the use of a “county line” that allowed political party organizations to group their preferred candidates on primary ballots, in a way that he argued gave them undue preference. Tammy Murphy was expected to benefit from that preferred placement in many of the most bluest counties, but a judge barred Democrats from using that ballot system for this year's primaries, just days after Tammy Murphy exited the race.

Kim won the primary in June, and some progressive Democrats called for Gov. Murphy to appoint Kim to the seat early to give him, and the state, more seniority over members elected in November.

“He could have gone with Andy Kim and given him seniority,” said Hector Oseguera, a Hudson County progressive activist. “He could have done something that would have benefited the state, but instead he's choosing to go down this road where it's not exactly clear, other than personal interests, why he would name George Helmy.”

Then-Gov. Jon Corzine appointed Menendez to the Senate in 2005, which helped Menendez gain an advantage in his own run the following year. When former U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg died in office in 2013, then-Gov. Chris Christie named his own close ally, Jeff Chiesa, to fill the seat until Cory Booker was elected to serve out the term in a special election.

Rasmussen also noted that Murphy could have opted to give Kim a leg up in November's election by making him the incumbent now, a move that Republicans opposed.

Murphy faced substantial criticism from Democratic party reformers for supporting his wife’s campaign, and some analysts noted a similar pattern with his appointment of his former chief of staff.

“George Helmy may not be a biological relative of NJ Gov. Phil Murphy, but naming Helmy to fill the vacant U.S. Senate seat reminds us of his boosting wife Tammy for the job. Murphy’s ex-chief of staff is like a relative,” Ross Baker, a retired professor of political science at Rutgers University, wrote on X. “Murphy disses Andy Kim and blocks his getting seniority.”

Last September, Helmy left the governor’s office and took an executive role at RWJBarnabas Health Medical Group, a large network of hospitals in New Jersey. The job put him in charge of “interactions with all federal, state and local governments, governmental agencies and associates,” according to a press release from the hospital group.

“You cannot write the history of this Administration without recognizing George’s deep commitment and leadership over the past four and half years,” Gov. Murphy said in the hospital group’s press release. “George undoubtedly made New Jersey a better place for its nine million residents.”

Rasmussen said that close relationship likely gave Murphy a greater comfort level with Helmy, but he noted that the selection might not amount to much in terms of actual votes and policymaking. Helmy can only serve until he's replaced by the winner of the November general election — either Kim or Republican Curtis Bashaw — who would begin a full term with the next Congress in January.

“We’re talking about an appointment that’s going to be maybe 100 days … so the number of times when George Helmy would actually cast a vote is going to be pretty small,” Rasmussen said.

Oseguera, who'd run an unsuccessful campaign to dethrone an incumbent congressman in the 2020 Democratic primary noted that many progressives had called on the governor to appoint a woman. He said the governor's choice of Helmy “rips the mask off.”

While Tammy Murphy was running, Gov. Murphy had said that her candidacy was important because she would have become the first woman to represent New Jersey in the Senate.

Oseguera warned that to people who don’t follow politics closely, the nomination would give the impression that “it's a good old boys club and they look out for each other and they don't really care about representation or about policy or any of the other things that they are supposed to care about.”

This story has been updated with additional information.

David Giambusso contributed reporting.

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Brigid Bergin is an award-winning senior reporter on the People and Power desk. She is fiercely committed to telling stories that help people engage and support democracy. In 2022, she hosted a live, ten-week call-in politics show ahead of the midterm elections called The People's Guide to Power. Brigid's reporting in 2017 included some of the first coverage of a political newcomer now known as AOC. In 2016, she broke the news of a voter purge in Brooklyn just days before New York’s presidential primary, triggering city, state and federal investigations. Brigid also guest hosts The Brian Lehrer Show and All Of It. She graduated from the University at Albany and the CUNY Newmark School of Journalism. Got a tip? Email [email protected] or Signal 917-723-4719.