Stephanie Bush-Baskette

The New Jersey Democratic State Committee will need to hold a special election to fill the vacant Democratic National Committeewoman post left vacant yesterday when Stephanie Bush-Baskette resigned to take a seat on the state Ethics Commission.  The party has not yet scheduled a date for the election, and the DNC is not expected to meet again until January.

Bush-Baskette, a former Assemblywoman and state Community Affairs Commissioner, won the job on August 13.  She defeated incumbent Christine "Roz" Samuels, one of the first superdelegates to switch from Hillary Clinton to Barack Obama. At the time, a Democratic official says that Samuels' defeat was unrelated to her defection to Obama in a state where most of the party leadership lined up behind Clinton. Sources say that the DNC seat traditionally goes to Essex, and Democratic County Chairman Phil Thigpen decided today to replace Samuels with Bush-Baskette.

One of the gripes some members of the state political elite have with Gov. Jon Corzine is that politically he can be a bit tone deaf.  Here's an example: yesterday, Corzine announced a rather bold, potentially historic proposal for campaign finance reform, taking on those so-called party bosses and special interest groups. Then later in the day, he quitely nominated a new member of the state Ethics Commission: newly-elected Democratic National Committeewoman Stephanie Bush-Baskette, a former Assemblywoman from East Orange and state Community Affairs Commissioner.  She now works (albeit part-time) at Florio Perrucci Steinhardt & Fader, a politically active law firm that is registered to lobby state government.  The highly regarded Bush-Baskette also runs an urban policy center at Rutgers University, which has numerous overlaps with state government.

(Editor's note: Bush-Baskette, who defeated Roz Samuels for the DNC seat in July and took office a few weeks ago, resigned her seat yesterday, just prior to Corzine's announcement.)

This week's Winners & Losers: Click here.

A Democratic National Committeewoman who was one of the first superdelegates to slip from Hillary Clinton to Barack Obama was defeated for re-election tonight. The New Jersey Democratic State Committee replaced Christine “Roz” Samuels with Stephanie Bush-Baskette, a former Assemblywoman from Essex County.

A Democratic official says that Samuels’ defeat was unrelated to her defection to Obama in a state where most of the party leadership lined up behind Clinton. Sources say that the DNC seat traditionally goes to Essex, and Democratic County Chairman Phil Thigpen decided today to replace Samuels with Bush-Baskette.

Citing comments former President Bill Clinton made about Obama, Samuels dropped her support of Clinton just after she won the New Jersey primary. A week later, she endorsed Obama. Samuels, a state NAACP Executive Board member, is a former Newark Teachers’ Union, Local 481 official.