Challenging Van Drew for congressional seat, he also wants to bring N.J. $$ back from D.C.
Editor’s note: U.S. Rep. Jeff Van Drew did not respond to multiple requests to be interviewed regarding his run for re-election.
Van Drew was featured in the Sept. 14 edition of the Sentinel after speaking during 9/11 ceremonies in Upper Township.
That story is available here.
OCEAN CITY — Tim Alexander, the Democrat challenging incumbent U.S. Rep. Jeff Van Drew in the Second District race, said his goal is to represent “every single person in this district” and to bring more New Jersey taxpayer dollars back home from Washington.
With the bulk of his career spent working in law enforcement, including 27 years in the Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office in Mays Landing as a detective captain in the criminal investigation section, Alexander said a few reasons motivated him to make his first run at elective office.
A Newark native who has lived in South Jersey since 1980, he said one instigating factor was the 2020 death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. A police officer was convicted of murder in Floyd’s death after kneeling on his neck for more than 9 minutes while arresting him.
As the son of a law enforcement officer and the father of another, Alexander said it bothered him that Derek Chauvin, a 19-year officer, was in charge of training other officers.
“The vast majority in the law enforcement community are good, honorable people working a tough job,” he said, saying Chauvin and other officers who have committed atrocities are anomalies.
Because his grandfather told him the best way to make change is from the inside, Alexander put together a police reform plan that revolves around community involvement and engagement, mental health, drug addiction components and enhanced training, but he couldn’t gain any traction with law enforcement officials.
He knows as a congressman he wouldn’t be able to force police departments to adopt his plan, but he could work to get funding to support reforms.
“If you put money behind a concept, many departments would jump on it and it would create a wave of change in the country that we’re long overdue for,” he said.
Money is another factor motivating him to challenge Van Drew, who is finishing his second term in Congress after a decades-long career as a mayor, county commissioner and state assemblyman and senator in South Jersey. More to the money point, Alexander said it is the fact New Jersey sends far more taxes to the federal government than it gets back.
Alexander said he won’t support anything that will increase taxes “because I’m a New Jersey taxpayer and we can’t afford any more taxes. There are plenty more resources that need to be allocated to help us.
“I believe the majority of people believe the same way I do that investment needs to come back to New Jersey. We leave $25 billion a year in Washington in our tax dollars. For every $1 we send to Washington, we get 73 cents back,” he said.
As an example, he said New Mexico gets $4.34 in federal money for every $1 it sends.
“We are a donor state, dead last on that list. It is shocking to me no one is screaming at the top of their lungs that we need this money back,” Alexander said. “More importantly, when money comes to this state, it needs to come to South Jersey.”
“I’m trying to identify those projects in every single county across the district that the federal government should be paying for. We’re sending $25 billion every year to Washington and still paying for those projects anyway. We’re getting double hit on these things,” he said. “That money should be coming back to us to make sure we are not paying for it twice.
“The reality is no one is making this argument, no one is framing it this way, and no one is fighting to make this happen. That’s why I’m running.”
He also noted that out of the more than $10.6 billion sent to New Jersey in the federal CARES Act, the eight counties in South Jersey together received less than single North Jersey counties. “We don’t have anybody fighting for us,” he said.
“Everything I’m proposing is for everybody,” he added, when asked why different groups of voters would support him. “I don’t have blue ideas. I don’t have red ideas. I live in this district, I live in this state. I have the same experiences as the average person.
“I am a Democrat, but my goal is to represent every single person in this district whether you vote for me or not. I want to make sure every single person in this district has the opportunity to benefit from my holding this office,” he said.
“The way we do that is to bring money home … and work on things the federal government is responsible for. The way I see it, my job is to go to Washington and bring back home our tax money so we can use it to make our communities better, stronger, safer, brighter.”
Alexander criticized Van Drew for being “firmly engrained” with the MAGA (Donald Trump-affiliated voters), who he said don’t share the values of the Republican Party.
There are Democrats, there are Republicans, there are unaffiliated and then there is this MAGA group. I know they are part of the Republican Party, but they don’t share the values of the Republican Party. That constituency, he said, “is about tearing things down. It is about total anarchy, in my opinion, it’s about saying no to everything.
“If you look at the current congressman’s record, it’s loaded with no’s without counter-proposals. If you don’t like something, and you think you can do a better job with it … then why not propose something else that benefits South Jersey and benefits the country?”
Health care and women’s rights
Alexander said with his background — which not only includes law enforcement but work as a prosecutor in the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office, the Civil Rights Unit of the Philadelphia Solicitor’s Office and currently in private practice — he can be effective fighting for women’s equality in health care. He said the Dobbs decision, that took away the federal protection for abortion rights, extends well beyond that.
“The court has said … government can control women’s lives and in no way similar can control men. They’re saying this aspect of your health care can be dictated and controlled by a state.”
He added with U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham wanting to push for a federal ban on abortion, “it is clear to me this is a governmental overreach. It’s a constitutional affront, similar to the Dred Scott decision.” (The U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 1857 that the Constitution was not meant to include people of black African descent as American citizens, a ruling decried as racist and one of the worst in the court’s history.)
“You’re saying a citizen of this country is lesser than because the government will control how they access health care,” he said, explaining his background as a civil rights attorney will allow him to fight these decisions and fight for equality for everyone.
Background
Alexander and his wife, Anna, have been married for 34 years and have three children. He has a bachelor’s degree in business management from Drexel University, an MBA from Drexel’s LeBow College of Business and a juris doctorate from Rutgers University School of Law in Camden.
By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff