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Rep. Josh Gottheimer Is a Really, Really Terrible Boss, Former Staffers Say
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Candidate
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| Contributor | IndyGeorgia |
| Last Edited | IndyGeorgia Feb 07, 2020 07:22pm |
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| Category | Profile |
| Author | Ryan Grim |
| News Date | Wednesday, May 22, 2019 06:30:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | FOR THOSE WHO lived through it, the Teaneck Democratic Municipal Committee meeting on May 8, 2017, is seared into their memories.
Josh Gottheimer never wanted to be there in the first place. The New Jersey Democratic congressman hated town halls, but across the country, activists fired up in the wake of Donald Trump’s election were demanding their representatives hold them. If they refused, Indivisible or other local activist groups would hold the events anyway, putting cardboard cutouts in place of the representatives, affairs that the local news would eagerly cover.
So Gottheimer capitulated to the Teaneck Democrats, but with some major conditions: He’d take questions, but they had to be written ahead of time. And it would not be called a “town hall.” And it would be public — but no press.
The event was going well until Gottheimer’s staff noticed an elderly Teaneck resident in the audience taking notes. The man, Jim Norman, had been thinking of starting a community newspaper, a weekly that he planned to call the Teaneck Independent. As it was, he occasionally posted his community dispatches online. Gottheimer’s aides tried to get the representative’s attention to warn him that a potential member of the Fourth Estate was in the audience. They also told Norman that no press was allowed at the event, but he told them that it was a public event, and the press couldn’t be barred. |
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