the Party line battle that dominated the US Senate primary may be shifting to the next governor's race this week Jersey city mayor and gubinatorial hopeful Steve Fulop threw his campaign support behind a federal judge's recent decision to abolish use of the countyline ballot system in the upcoming Democratic US Senate primary Fluop's campaign filed an amicus brief pushing back on arguments made by the middle sex County Democratic organization one of just two Democratic County committees who are appealing the judge's ruling which temporarily halts the use of the line just for the Democratic race fup has long opposed bracketing party endorsed candidates together on ballots in making the announcement he took to the social media platform X writing we want to see Fair elections in New Jersey this year and every year into the future mayor fup joins me now Mr Mayor uh thanks so much for joining me what are the arguments ments you're laying out in this brief well I mean the arguments are fundamentally what some have others argued with regards to we're the only state that does this sort of lines and then beyond that you know it's a response to the middle sex brief which is the only political organization that responded similar to what we're doing and basically they outlined a lot of reasons why they think the line should exist and we're pushing back saying a lot of their arguments just aren't truthful and so what's false about them well look first first they start by saying that it promotes democracy and you just look at their delegation in of itself the state senate delegation which they have the largest in New Jersey um they have one of the most diverse counties yet a 100% of their state senators are white 80% of them are white males um doesn't speak to diversity promoting any sort of other opportunities for people um you look at the history of block voting it's something that's familiar in Middle sex and around New Jersey they say it isn't but factually it is so you know we outline all those things for the court and hopefully they can continue down the path of saying that New Jersey should be like the rest of the country with black voting you though also were drawing on personal experience from past races in here that you highlighted What specifically did you experience that you feel is relevant here yeah so in 2013 I ran for mayor against the entire political structure it was one of the two races in the country that President Obama actually endorsed he endorsed my opponent the entire State apparatus was against me but because it was block voting where nobody had the advantage of a line ideas is what uh was relevant to the voters and I ultimately was successful in 2017 when I looked at running for governor for the first time um and I quickly realized that the lines were not going to be supportive of me um I chose not to follow through and running because there was no path to winning and if you look at the day after and the week after I decided not to run um and everybody surrounded Phil Murphy publicly the public narrative was that there is no longer a need for a primary that Phil Murphy will be the governor and that just speaks to the importance of the lines which definitely doesn't promote democracy the middle sex County uh brief though notes that other federal appell courts have supported keeping systems like this in place so and they obviously hired a Powerhouse attorney to represent them why do you think it's in their interest to keep this bluntly I I think a lot of people who control the lines throughout New Jersey make a lot of money off controlling the lines whether lobbyists whether they're special interests public contracts public contracts and the lines particularly down ballot at the uh county level Municipal level and assembly level where there's less scrutiny and you could control people you'll have elected officials are beholding to the political boss that controls the line as opposed to beholding to the voter and that's the fundamental problem here so if you're looking for more accountability to the voter you should be in support of block ballots are you filing this now to for lack of a better word get it out of away before the gubernatorial election starts in Earnest well my My Hope Is that we operate like the rest of the country um 49 other states do block ballots and uh look I don't want to deal with this next year so I want to make sure that uh we have a fair open election next year there's no lines block ballots and this is the opportunity to insert ourselves for both parties because as of right now at least for this primary and we need to see where it goes beyond that it's really only affecting Democrats yeah because Democrats fight but I think a reasonable person would say that if it's unconstitutional for Democrats it's also unconstitutional for Republicans so um I'm comfortable that ultimately what will prevail is uh a fair election for both sides mayor Steve phip thank you so much for your time thank you