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Well after a couple days of speculation, much around former Governor Thomas Kean Sr., Chris Christie has tabbed New Jersey Attorney General Jeff Chiesa to temporarily hold the Senate seat that’s been vacated by the death of Frank Lautenberg.
Chiesa, who has been the AG since early 2012, will not run in a special election this year so he’s clearly just a placeholder that will be a trivia question in the next ten or so years. Chiesa and Christie have a long relationship and Chiesa was a chief counsel to Christie as well as the head of his transition team when Christie succeeded Jon Corzine to the governorship.
As always, placeholders usually are a place to reward political allies with the perks of being a Senator. Chiesa appears to be similar to Christie and will likely be fairly uncontroversial and soon-to-be-forgotten in the same vein as Ted Kaufman, Mo Cowan (current placeholder in Massachusetts), Paul Kirk, Carte Goodwin, amongst others.