TRENTON, NJ (TIP): Lt. Gov. Dale G. Caldwell of New Jersey resigned on Friday, September 25, a day after investigators concluded he had used sexually charged language and had exploited his position to try to secure a promotion for a girlfriend and dates for himself, says a New York Times report.
Dr. Caldwell, a Democrat, had been in the role for only eight months. And he and his lawyer, Thomas Calcagni, had pushed back strenuously against the findings in a report commissioned by his boss, Gov. Mikie Sherrill. Investigators who interviewed 17 people concluded that Dr. Caldwell’s behavior constituted sexual harassment and violated workplace standards.
“I’m not resigning because of the report,” Dr. Caldwell, 66, said in an interview. “It’s false. I’m resigning because I don’t want to be a distraction to the administration.”
“I’m supportive of the Sherrill administration,” he added. “I want her to be as successful as possible.”
Ms. Sherrill, a first-term Democrat, had called for Dr. Caldwell’s resignation on Thursday.
In a news conference held Friday to announce the resignation, Ms. Sherrill cited a pattern of behavior by Dr. Caldwell, unsuccessful attempts to get him to adhere more closely to the state’s ethics guidelines and “substantiated claims of sexual harassment.”
She said her decision to seek the lieutenant governor’s resignation should signal that behavior condoned in the past would no longer be ignored.
“What was so important to me was to make sure that if there are substantiated claims of sexual harassment and ethics violations, that I, as the leader of the government, handle that,” Ms. Sherrill said Friday.
“There has been a culture in Trenton, probably since the birth of our nation, to sweep this under the rug,” she said.
“When I say there is a culture change taking place, I mean it,” she added. “This is part of it.”
The investigation began after an anonymous letter, sent in May, accused Dr. Caldwell of being “particularly shameless in handing out his state business cards and asking women out on dates.” The letter, from a “Concerned NJ Resident,” also detailed three times when Dr. Caldwell, who is divorced, had brought nonpaying guests to events.
“The woman he brought with him demanded to be seated at the head table even though she arrived unexpected and without a ticket” to an April women’s leadership luncheon in West Orange, N.J., the letter stated. “This incident was disruptive to the event.”
Lawyers for a firm the Sherrill administration hired to investigate the claims also found that Dr. Caldwell, a former president of Centenary University, had used sexually charged language with a female aide in his state vehicle. He had also recommended that a woman he was dating be promoted, according to the report, but did not disclose that the two were in an on-again, off-again romantic relationship.
“No one was pushing anybody,” Dr. Caldwell said Friday, noting that, in an email about the promotion, he also stated: “Please share her information as you see fit.”
“I was told they wanted good people,” he said. “I said, ‘Here’s a good person.’ ”
Ms. Sherrill seemed particularly troubled that at least some of the incidents took place after Dr. Caldwell had been retrained on the state’s ethics guidelines.
“The ethical lapses persisted despite multiple warnings and trainings,” she said when she released the 61-page report.
“I’ve seen firsthand how a hostile culture can undermine everyone’s ability to succeed,” she added. “It’s insidious and ruptures the trust within an organization.”
Dr. Caldwell and his lawyer had suggested that the claims were overblown. Late Thursday, in a strongly worded, two-page rebuttal to the report’s finding, his lawyer, Mr. Calcagni, intimated that the staff member who recounted the incident in Dr. Caldwell’s car had ulterior reasons for reporting the incident. She had told investigators that Dr. Caldwell, after being rebuffed for a date with her friend, had complained that ambitious women were misguided in their search for “young sperm.”
Dr. Caldwell denies ever making the statement.
“The accuser’s motives were never tested,” Mr. Calcagni wrote, “and the lieutenant governor’s and other eyewitnesses’ accounts were discounted if not entirely disregarded.”
In May, in a written response to the anonymous letter, Dr. Caldwell, who is Black, had suggested that race and gender were at play. “Unfortunately, in this current political environment, false accusations, especially against people of color, seem to be commonplace,” he wrote.
Neither he nor his lawyer restated that claim this week, and a coalition of prominent Black New Jersey leaders on Friday issued a statement saying they respected the “difficult decision” that Ms. Sherrill made in asking for Dr. Caldwell’s resignation. “Accountability matters, and when difficult circumstances arise, leadership sometimes requires making difficult decisions,” read the letter, which was signed by 11 leaders, including Representative Bonnie Watson Coleman and LeRoy J. Jones Jr., a lobbyist and the leader of the state’s Democratic Party.
They also commended Dr. Caldwell. “He has put the interests of the people of New Jersey and the work of our state ahead of himself,” they wrote.
Ms. Sherrill, who picked Dr. Caldwell as her running mate ahead of her victory last year, said she would select another lieutenant governor within 45 days. She appointed the state’s acting comptroller, Shirley U. Emehelu, as secretary of state to replace Dr. Caldwell, who, in addition to being lieutenant governor, also led the Department of State.
The investigation, and questions about how it had been handled, has engulfed state politics for weeks.
The position of lieutenant governor was created by referendum in 2005, and Dr. Caldwell was only the fourth person to serve in the role. He stood in as governor when Ms. Sherrill was away and, as secretary of state, oversaw all elections.
Those responsibilities made the timing of the inquiry particularly problematic for Ms. Sherrill, a former Navy helicopter pilot who has said that she hoped to use her decisive victory last year to influence national Democratic politics ahead of this fall’s midterm elections.
Even after she initiated the inquiry, Ms. Sherrill repeatedly left Dr. Caldwell in charge when she traveled, a decision that privately drew criticism from her Democratic allies in New Jersey. Last month, Ms. Sherrill had appeared in Massachusetts and New Hampshire with fellow veterans that she had endorsed as she talked about using her moderate brand of politics to reinvigorate the Democratic Party.
But she had not left the metropolitan New York region since Sept. 4, when the investigation into Dr. Caldwell was first revealed by The New Jersey Globe.
Dr. Caldwell said he was not yet certain where he might go next, but that he was confident his career in the private sector would flourish.
“I have a lot of other options,” he said. “I’m moving forward. Who knows what my future will be. But I’d rather just get away from politics and do the best I can to help New Jersey.”
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