Preceded by Domenick DiCicco Role Politician Political party Democratic | Website Legislative web page Party Democratic Party Name Gabriela Mosquera | |
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Born January 3, 1977 (age 47)
Guayaquil, Ecuador ( 1977-01-03 ) Residence Blackwood, New Jersey (Gloucester Township) | ||
Education The College of New Jersey | ||
Gabriela Mosquera
Gabriela M. Mosquera (born January 3, 1977) is an American Democratic Party politician, who has served in the New Jersey General Assembly since 2012, where she represents the 4th Legislative District.
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Biography
Mosquera was born on January 3, 1977 in Guayaquil, Ecuador. She immigrated to the United States at the age of three. Mosquera received a B.A. degree from The College of New Jersey, where she majored in political science and was awarded an M.B.A. from the Keller Graduate School of Management at Devry University.
After college, she worked as a policy analyst for the Assembly Democratic Caucus and later as an assistant to 5th District Assemblywoman Nilsa Cruz-Perez. She is currently the chief of staff to Gloucester Township mayor David R. Mayer. She has lived in the Blackwood section of Gloucester Township since 2011.
Electoral career
Due to the 2011 apportionment based on the results of the 2010 United States Census, the 4th District Assembly seat of Domenick DiCicco, a Republican, became vacant, with DiCicco placed in the 3rd District where he lost to the Democratic incumbents. Mosquera ran for the vacant seat on the Democratic ticket with the incumbent Paul Moriarty. In the general election, she and Moriarty defeated the Republican candidates, former Gloucester Township councilwoman Shelley Lovett and Patricia Fratticcioli. By taking DiCicco's seat, Mosquera represented the only gain by the Democrats in the Assembly in the 2011 election cycle.
In response to a lawsuit filed by Lovett, Mosquera could not be sworn into office in January 2012 and a ruling issued the next month by the New Jersey Supreme Court declared Mosquera's November 2011 invalid, saying that her move to the Gloucester Township did not meet the one-year residency requirement established in state law. Mosquera was sworn into office on March 5 after she was selected by district Democrats and filed to face off again against Lovett in a November 2012 special election.
In June 2012, the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey overturned the N.J. Supreme Court ruling and upheld her November 2011 election, finding that an injunction that prohibits enforcement of the one-year residency rule is in force in years in which redistricting takes place.
Mosquera won the November 2012 special election for the remainder of the term, defeating Lovett by a margin of 60 to 40 percent.
Mosquera has served in the Assembly on the Commerce and Economic Development Committee, the Financial Institutions and Insurance Committee and the Women and Children Committee.
District 4
Each of the forty districts in the New Jersey Legislature has one representative in the New Jersey Senate and two members in the New Jersey General Assembly. The other representatives from the 4th District for the 2014-2015 Legislative Session are: