November 02, 2018
Thom Carroll/PhillyVoice
Sen. Cory Booker speaks at the Camden Rising concert at the BB&T Pavilion in 2016.
A new bill signed by New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy on Thursday permits politicians, such as Sen. Cory Booker, to run for both U.S. president and senator, simultaneously, in the 2020 election.
The law clarifies the previous law in New Jersey, which did not explicitly prohibit people from running for multiple offices, but it forbade individuals from holding more than one office.
The recent bill "clarifies that a person may seek the offices of Member of the United States House of Representatives or United States Senator and President or Vice President simultaneously."
New Jersey lawmakers have unofficially dubbed the bill "Cory's Law," though the language of the legislation does not name Booker specifically, As speculation continues about whether Booker will run for POTUS in 2020, that year will also put the senator up for re-election for a second six-year term in the U.S. Senate.
If Booker were not to receive the Democratic presidential nomination, but be selected as the running mate for the Democrat who does, the law also allows Booker to run for vice president and re-election to the Senate at the same time.
“I think it was clear, but this was just to stop any lawsuits to slow him down,” New Jersey Sen. President Stephen Sweeney, D-Gloucester, a sponsor of the bill, said to Politico.
“Realize, also, we don’t have a primary (filing deadline) until April. And normally we have a pretty good idea of who the candidate’s going to be by then.”
The law has garnered some backlash from Republican officials. In 2015, legislation was introduced by some state Democrats that would have made it necessary for then-Gov. Chris Christie to resign from his post in Trenton when he ran for president.
That 2015 legislation never moved forward, and Christie was able to run for president while remaining New Jersey' governor.
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