NJ Congressional Candidate Contacts Critics Employer – Madison, NJ Patch

NORTH JERSEY – Madison’s David Steketee, 43, social media criticism of Rosemary Becchi, a candidate for Congress in New Jersey’s 11th District, struck such a nerve that he says the Republican challenger contacted his employer and accused him of stalking her.

“Thankfully, I have an excellent employer who explained they completely support my first amendment rights, found no issue with the comments Mrs. Becchi included in her complaint, and found no corroboration for her concerns after a review of my comments,” Steketee told Patch.

The St. Louis native and University of Missouri School of Journalism graduate said he was prompted to comment by what he described as a “lack of substance” in her campaign posts.

“It became obvious many of her criticisms were disingenuous and her claims about her work, particularly with 529s, were a bit dubious. And, of course, there were the usual political differences.”

It seemed that old habits born of Steketee’s journalism training, died hard.

“Over the course of her campaign, despite fact checking, her campaign repeatedly posted the same lies over and over again,” he said. “So, in the hope of having a well-informed voting population, I continued to comment and point to source material to set the record straight.”

Steketee, a Democrat, was a frequent commenter on the Republican Becchi’s campaign Facebook page until he was blocked and his comments removed. But blocking him wasn’t the endgame, threatening his employment was.

Becchi sent an email to the chief ethics officer of Steketee’s company Sept. 10, Steketee said, but he didn’t find out about it until Oct. 6. Steketee said the email sent to his employer was from her Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck work account and made no mention of her candidacy.

“Despite Mrs. Becchi’s deceptive attempt to complain to my employer via her employer and imply she was being targeted as a private citizen, my employer did the necessary research to understand the origins of her complaint,” he said.

Becchi’s decision to complain to a detractor’s employer is similar to what then-Republican U.S. Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen did back in 2017. The incumbent wrote a fundraising letter to a board member of an Essex County bank and pointed out that one of its executives was a “ringleader” against him. The alleged “ringleader,” West Caldwell resident Saily Avelenda, who was a senior vice president and assistant general counsel at Lakeland Bank, eventually quit her job due to “issues at work that were difficult to overcome” in the wake of the letter. She is now executive director of the New Jersey Democratic State Committee.

Despite the conflict, Steketee said he had no regrets about speaking his mind and standing for what he believed in.

“Holding politicians accountable to the truth is critical to a functioning democracy. And, the fact that Mrs. Becchi responded in this fashion just demonstrates how unfit she is to serve in public office,” he said. “Frankly, I’m glad she came after me as opposed to someone who may have been less able to stand up for themselves and who may have had a less supportive employer.”

Patch reached out to the Becchi campaign but did not receive a reply.

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