Former New Jersey governor McGreevey seeks second chance in launching run for mayor

JERSEY CITY — Former New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey formally reentered politics on Thursday, seeking to become mayor of the state’s second largest city two decades after he resigned as governor.

In 2004, McGreevey stepped down from the state’s highest office amid a sex scandal that captivated the nation.

In the years since, he seemed to swear off his old life, at one point calling campaigning his addiction as he sought to become a priest and worked on programs to help prisoners reenter society.

He launched his campaign at a Dominican restaurant on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive run by someone who went through his prisoner reentry program. There, McGreevey talked about the city’s problems and about redemption and second chances.

“This election is not about yesterday, it’s about our tomorrows,” he said. “And candidly, I have made mistakes in my own life, for which I have apologized and own. But ask the families for whom I've served, ask those with whom I've worked in state government and local government and in reentry — and they will frankly say that Jim McGreevey works long and hard to bring needed change.”

But when he was asked why he was back in politics now, his first answer was simple.

“It’s spelled S-T-A-C-K,” McGreevey said, referring to Brian Stack, a state senator and mayor of neighboring Union City, who is a major force in Hudson County politics.

Stack said he’d spent a year and a half trying to get McGreevey to run.

“I just felt that’s he’s got a lot more gas in the tank and that he’s ready for this, and this is the right time for him and an even better time for Jersey City,” Stack said in an interview.

McGreevey may enter the race with the support of Stack but the field will not be clear. The election isn’t until 2025.

County Commissioner Bill O’Dea plans to announce later this month he’s running. Jersey City Council President Joyce Watterman told POLITICO she will run. Jersey City Council Member James Solomon is strongly considering a run too.

The race is nonpartisan and there won’t be a primary, which means Election Day is a full two years off.

The city’s current mayor, Steven Fulop, is not seeking reelection so he can run for governor in 2025.

McGreevey and Fulop have a rocky past. Fulop fired him from a city reentry program and McGreevey called it retaliation. Fulop has not endorsed a successor, though he’s in friend-making mode as he runs for governor, so there may be little benefit to picking favorites and creating enemies.

But notable allies also showed up for McGreevey’s announcement, including Paterson Mayor André Sayegh and former state Senate President Steve Sweeney, who remains a major union figure and is also considering a run for governor.

But that outside support and McGreevey’s own peripatetic career will likely be issues in the race. While the McGreevey family has roots in Jersey City, he was mayor of Woodbridge, in Middlesex County, before he went to Trenton as a state lawmaker and then as governor.

O’Dea said his campaign would be “about the people,” not “anything related to my own ego,” a jab at McGreevey. He also questioned how much outside backers would help in Jersey City’s election.

“That is a double-edged sword,” O’Dea said. “People in the town, they’re like, 'I’m sorry, I didn’t know such and such lived in Jersey City.'”

Sayegh, for his part, said he often endorses other mayors.

McGreevey’s past will almost certainly face more scrutiny. While he’s often remembered for resigning because he was, in his words, “a gay American,” there were other issues at play.

His downfall had been precipitated by a slow-burning scandal involving Golan Cipel, an Israeli citizen. McGreevey had hired Cipel in 2002 as a homeland security adviser despite lacking qualifications and being unable to get a federal security clearance. The hiring raised questions about the relationship between the two, but McGreevey denied an affair.

McGreevey and Cipel continued to carry out a secret relationship until it soured. In July 2004, lawyers for Cipel threatened to sue McGreevey for sexual harassment. McGreevey claims he was extorted, but nonetheless he faced a reckoning. That August, he admitted to an extramarital affair and resigned

In a launch video the campaign released Thursday morning, McGreevey is calling on people to give him a second chance. The theme runs through his life since Drumthwacket, the governor's mansion. He wrote a book called “The Confession.” He was the focus of an HBO documentary called, “Fall to Grace.” And he’s spent the last decade or so working on reentry programs, including running the New Jersey Reentry Corp., a Jersey City-based nonprofit which is separate from the one he was fired by Fulop from.