Election profile: 36th Legislative District
New Jersey’s 36th Legislative District is in North Jersey. Its boundaries changed slightly after the recent reapportionment. It covers parts of Bergen County (Carlstadt, Cliffside Park, East Rutherford, Edgewater, Fairview, Lyndhurst, North Arlington, Ridgefield, Rutherford, Wallington, and Wood-Ridge) and Passaic City in Passaic County.
The district has been largely represented by Democrats since the 1970s. Currently, about 41% of registered voters in the district are Democrats and 19% are Republicans with most of the rest unaffiliated.
All three incumbent Democrats are seeking reelection and being challenged by the same Republicans who lost in 2021.
Sen. Paul Sarlo, the chair of the Senate Budget Committee, joined the Assembly in 2002 and the Senate a year later and is also mayor of Wood-Ridge. Challenging the incumbent is Republican Chris Auriemma, a US Army veteran and firefighter from Lyndhurst who lost a Senate bid to Sarlo two years ago.
The Democratic Assembly incumbents are Clinton Calabrese, a Cliffside Park man who works for an investment firm and took office in 2018, and Gary Schaer, an investment consultant and former mayor of Passaic. They face, again, Republicans Craig Auriemma, a veteran from Lyndhurst and Chris Auriemma’s twin brother, and Joseph Viso of Carlstadt.
Editor’s note: All candidates for state legislative seats were contacted multiple times for the NJ Decides 2023 voting guide Q&As. Click on a candidate to see who responded and any answers provided. More information about the project, including the full text of the questions, is available here.
The candidates
SENATE
The candidate did not respond to the questionnaire.
Age: 51 Hometown: Lyndhurst Occupation: Retired Jersey City Fire Department Personal background: 23 years U.S. Army with two combat deployments in Iraq, retired Jersey City firefighter, B.A. in business management, B.A. in emergency management and master’s degree in emergency management. Political background: I have never held political office. Why are you running for office? Because I don’t believe I’m being represented. I believe in consent of the governed and I no longer consent. Key election issue: Parental rights. A Parental Bill of Rights. Example of a successful project: I’ve helped many times to put together events at my Amvets and American Legion. Example of a challenge faced: Military service and my strength to overcome it is through my faith in Jesus. On NJ’s gun laws: I would ensure that if someone is arrested with an illegal firearm that they are actually prosecuted and not released without bail. On the Murphy administration’s climate change proposals: I do not support his initiatives because consensus of the population has never been given on whether this is the appropriate way to approach these expenditures and new mandates. These projects and mandates were done unilaterally by the executive. With all expenditures and mandates these should be done by legislation. On housing affordability and property taxes: The first step is reigning in budgets that have over $1 billion in earmarks that are only used to try to buy votes. We have so many new developments that are being built that the going rents in the new construction have exorbitant rates, which increase the fair market value of existing rents. Lowering property taxes can be done by changing the school aid formula that treats most of the cities in my district as affluent when in fact they are blue-collar and middle-class areas. There are cities that have 2,700 citizens that get the same school aid as my city of 22,000. I would demand that be changed. Final thoughts: I am retired so this will be my only job and my focus.
ASSEMBLY
The candidate did not respond to the questionnaire.
The candidate did not respond to the questionnaire.
The candidate did not respond to the questionnaire.