Jeffrey B. Garfield, executive director and general counsel of the State Elections Enforcement Commission, is retiring after 30 years in the agency. Although it’s effective at the end of the month, he’s going to stay around for a few months until a replacement is hired.
During the monthly meeting yesterday of the SEEC, the Blogster caught the following on tape:
“I’m very appreciative of the support the commission has showed me during my tenure,” he said. “I’m very honored to have served the public this long. To get a chance to serve in the same position for 30 years is really quite a thrill. I’ve seen a lot during that tenure. When I first became, campaigns were very small and simple and in the 1980s they really started to blossom. The Legislature did become, I believe, to be a co-equal branch of government with the executive branch. We worked tirelessly to pass many election reform legislative, to build safeguards into the system, first to ban obvious contributions during the session. Perhaps the crowning achievement during my tenure was to work on the comprehensive campaign finance reform legislation, which the governor signed and the General Assembly passed in 2005. It gave rise to this new agency that I’ve had the pleasure of leading for the last several years… We’re number one in the nation in terms of campaign-finance reform…”