Former state Senate President Steve Sweeney, who was defeated last November by Republican Ed Durr in one of the most shocking upsets in New Jersey political history, is still campaigning.
Sweeney, who represented the 3rd Legislative District in South Jersey, has continued to aggressively raise campaign cash, with a war chest of $1 million, filings with the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission show. He’s charged thousands of dollars for meals to his campaign account and his "Sweeney for Senate" campaign even purchased an SUV to take him around the state on campaign business. It's a car similar to the state-issued vehicle in which he was driven around New Jersey by a state trooper during his 12 years atop the Senate.
The former Senate president also regularly attends county commission meetings in his native Gloucester County, where he once served as freeholder director. During a recent local Chamber of Commerce event where Durr and new Assemblymembers Beth Sawyer and Bethanne McCarthy Patrick spoke, Sweeney and his former Democratic district mates — former Assemblymembers John Burzichelli and Adam Taliaferro — watched from the audience.
Sweeney has yet to announce whether he will run for his former Senate seat in 2023, for governor in 2025, or both. He has, however, launched a think tank — the Steve Sweeney Center for Public Policy at Rowan University — that’s issued a policy-heavy paper on state budgeting.
“I have not announced anything. Just keeping my options open,” Sweeney said in a phone interview this week. “I said I wasn’t done.”
New Jersey’s campaign finance laws are fairly lax when it comes to expenses such as meals. Officials who are years away from their next election, or who face nominal or no opposition, have wide latitude to spend campaign funds on the “ordinary and necessary expenses of holding public office.”
Jeff Brindle, ELEC's executive director, said candidates are allowed to spend money on meals, as long as they are campaign-related, and are permitted to purchase vehicles as long as they’re only used for campaign business.
Since his Nov. 2 loss to Durr, Sweeney has spent nearly $14,500 from his Senate campaign account dining out at various restaurants in South Jersey and Philadelphia, according to Sweeney for Senate filings with ELEC.
The meals ranged from $28.39 at the LongHorn Steakhouse in Deptford in January to $967 at Philadelphia’s Rittenhouse Grill in November, less than three weeks after his defeat. In total, according to ELEC reports, Sweeney has paid for 67 meals from his campaign account since the end of his last campaign, averaging roughly one meal every four days — though it’s likely more since reporting of the meals, which are charged to a campaign credit card, has lagged by about a month.
“I have many friends who see him out. I did look at the ELEC report and I was blown away by the fact that he was writing off meals like that,” said Sawyer (R-Gloucester), who’s been critical of Sweeney and, after seeing a road and building named after him, introduced a bill to ban naming facilities after living current or former elected officials.
Sweeney declined to detail who he was dining with, but said all of the meals were campaign-related and none were when he dined alone.
The former Senate president said he’s had a long policy of not letting anyone buy him meals during political meetings.
“I wasn’t going to be in a situation where someone bought me a cheeseburger and I was accused of getting them a million dollar contract,” he said. “You can’t buy me a soda. It’s just the way I’ve operated my whole career.”
Sweeney's campaign also paid $5,000 to a Cherry Hill car dealership in March, according to his campaign filings, for a Chevrolet Suburban.
"It's strictly used for political events, functions, meetings and nothing else. And it’s not always used — only when I feel it’s practical to use,” Sweeney said, adding that his campaign account will make payments to the dealership.
Sweeney is a vice president for the Ironworkers union, a job that also comes with a car.
Sweeney has often drawn attention for using campaign funds to pay for meals and other unusual expenses. In 2011, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported that after resigning from his Gloucester County freeholder position, he continued to use that campaign account to pay for meals and other expenses, such as cigars and watches that were gifts to other politicians.
In fact, his Senate campaign account in March paid more than $2,100 for cigars from the Smoke Shop in Woodbury. Sweeney said he gave the cigars to guests at a fundraiser he held at the Rittenhouse Grill in March, where tickets started at $2,600. And the donors haven’t changed: Building trades labor unions, lobbyists, law firms and engineering firms all feature prominently.
The fundraiser appears to have been a success. Sweeney raised well over $300,000 from it, not counting the $170,000 transferred from his previous campaign account.
Sweeney insists he has made no decisions about running for office, even though New Jersey Globe reported — and POLITICO confirmed — that he told members of the New Jersey State Pipe Trades Association at their December convention in Atlantic City that he plans to run for governor.
He told POLITICO his words were misinterpreted.
“I said ‘Hey, listen, I lost the election. Who knows what I’m going to do next. I could run for reelection or I could run for governor.’ I didn’t say I was running for governor or reelection," he said. "I chose my words wisely.”
