The Camden County Shuffle

As surely as New Year’s resolutions follow the indulgences of December, the November election cycle ushers in the Camden County Shuffle to our little corner of NJ. And once again, Clementon, NJ did not disappoint. For the second year in a row, the Democrats in Clementon pulled a post-election (not so) surprise and announced a Democratic Council vacancy only to rush in their favorite son. This time it was the Mayor’s best friend and so-called “brother” Chris McKelvey. He replaced David Cornwell, who never served a single day in his post, no explanation provided. One of the “alternative” candidates put forward by the Democratic County Committee was outgoing Councilman Mark Armbruster. (Yeah, I’m sure he definitely wanted to fill the vacancy he was just leaving!) This position was not advertised prior to being filled by Mayor Weaver’s bestie.

Following the same script, after the election of 2020, Clementon Councilman Melvin Applegate, another Democrat, resigned his seat and was replaced by an unelected close friend and neighbor of Democratic Council President Thomas Shaw. Despite the fact that Independent upstarts, Juanita London and this very author, had received approximately 12% of the vote for Council, neither woman was even asked if they had an interest in the vacancy. Instead, Robert Dorsey was shuffled in, having received exactly zero percent of the vote. (As an ironic side note, the aforementioned Chris McKelvey also attempted to run on the 2020 Democratic Council ticket as a write-in, having missed the deadline to be printed on the ballot, and handily lost. No worries, Chris! No need to actually be voted into office when friends can just appoint you.)

When I first got interested in South Jersey politics, I knew there were problems, but in my wide-eyed naïveté, I was completely unprepared for all the nepotism, back-room dealings, and straight-up corruption I would encounter. Finding allies amongst fellow South Jersey Progressives has been a needed balm to my wounded optimism. Thanks to Kate Delany, an amazing progressive Democrat in neighboring Collingswood, I learned that this totally legal, but highly unethical bulldozing practice actually has a name — the Camden County Shuffle.

Don’t know the steps to the Camden County Shuffle? The choreography goes something like this. One politician retires in November/ December. This creates a vacancy to shuffle in a loyalist. (In Clementon’s case, Dorsey, Shaw’s long-time buddy, and McKelvey, Weaver’s BFF.) That loyalist can then run in the new election as an INCUMBANT with all the benefits that go along with that (money, backing, ballot line). The dance has to commence far enough out that the public stops thinking about it by election time. (The South Jersey machine thinks we’re all stupid.) This dance happens regularly across Camden County (though often enough in Cherry Hill that it’s sometimes called the Cherry Hill Shuffle). Master dancer Donald Norcross was shuffled from Assembly to State Senate then to Congress.

Camden County needs democracy, not a dance!