New Jersey Governor Selects Black Woman To Serve As Lieutenant Governor

New Jersey has a new lieutenant governor. Tahesha Way, the former secretary of state, has been promoted to the office following the death of Shelia Oliver, POLITICO reports. She is expected to be sworn in on Sept. 14.

Way was Governor’s Phil Murphy number-one pick, but the choice was between Way and former governor Jon Corzine’s secretary of state, Nina Mitchell Wells.

The state’s third lieutenant governor, Way has served under the Murphy administration since 2017. Before being elected to office, she was a freeholder director in Passaic County and an administrative law judge. During her tenure as secretary of state, the Bronx, NY, native led the Division of Elections and served as chairperson of the New Jersey Complete Count Commission. Way became the first Black person and New Jersey official to serve as president of the National Association of Secretaries of State in 2022.

As lieutenant governor, Way hopes to maintaining New Jersey’s reputation of being the best and safest state to raise a family, according to a press release on the state’s website. The best way to do that, according to her, is by “protecting fundamental freedoms” like access to reproductive health care.

Way attended Brown University, where she served as vice president of the NAACP collegiate chapter and president of the Iota Alpha chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. She received her juris doctorate from the University of Virginia School of Law at Charlottesville and clerked for the Virginia Legal Aid Society and the United Steelworkers of America.

During her judicial term, she was a member of the National Association of Women Judges, the Association of Black Women Lawyers, the Passaic County Bar Association, and the New Jersey Women’s Lawyers Association.

Way is the wife of former New York Giants running back, Charles Way, and mom to their four kids.