Ex-NJ Gov. Jim McGreevey Considering Run for Mayor, 19 Years After High-Profile Resignation

Ex-NJ Gov. Jim McGreevey Considering Run for Mayor, 19 Years After High-Profile Resignation

By:  Serach Nissim

Former New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey is considering running for mayor of Jersey City.

As reported by the NY Post, the position for mayor in Jersey City will be up for grabs, as current Mayor Steven Fulop, who served for 10 years, announced in April that he will be running instead for NJ governor in 2025. McGreevey said he is giving “serious consideration” to trying for a political comeback 19 years after his resignation, and that he was “strongly encouraged” to run by his friend, Union City Mayor Brian P. Stack.  “There’s an opportunity perhaps to look at this as a last final act if you will,” McGreevey told CBS New York.  McGreevey said the focal point of his campaign will be  “quality of life issues” in Jersey City, which is the second-largest city in New Jersey. McGreevey’s family is from Jersey City, and he told CBS2 that running for mayor there is “almost, you know, coming home and the circle of life.”

McGreevey, 65, had served as the 52nd governor of New Jersey from 2002 until 2004, when he resigned after the revelation of his extramarital affair with a gubernatorial appointee.  He had once been a popular Democrat, formerly also serving as: a member of the NJ General Assembly, representing the 19th Legislative District from 1990 to 1992; was elected in 1993 as a NJ senator for four years; and was Mayor to the Township of Woodbridge.

As governor, his priorities had included auto insurance reform, implementing a stem cell research plan for New Jersey, and lobbying for and signing the state’s first domestic partnership law for same-sex couples. His term as governor, however, was turbulent not only because of his exposed gay affair but also due to controversy surrounding the credentials of several of his appointees, one of whom was his lover, pay to play allegations and extortion scandals involving backers, as per Wikipedia.  “My truth is that I am a gay American,” McGreevey, a married father of two, finally admitted in August 2004, after reportedly being blackmailed for up to $5 million. “I engaged in an adult consensual affair with another man, which violates my bonds of matrimony.”  “It was wrong. It was foolish. It was inexcusable,” he had added.

Per the Post, as governor, McGreevey had made the shocking admission in advance of a planned lawsuit by Golan Cipel, an Israeli political consultant, who accused McGreevey of sexual harassment. Cipel had dropped the suit after McGreevey resigned.  In 2008, McGreevey divorced his second wife, Dina Matos.  Since stepping down as governor, McGreevey received a divinity degree at General Theological Seminary in NYC and has worked as executive director of Jersey City’s Employment & Training Program, which included a program which gives prison inmates a second chance.

McGreevey told CBS News that he will make his final decision about running sometime in the fall.  Asked in the interview with CBS2’s “The Point”  what advice he would give his younger self, McGreevey replied: “Be who you are and accept yourself. Don’t live out of fear, live out of love.”