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Former Asbury Park City Councilman Jim Keady [above] is in the race for a seat in the U.S. Congress, having filed to run as a Democrat in the Third Congressional District, which stretches across the state from coastal Ocean County to the Delaware River in Burlington County.

First-term Republican Tom MacArthur currently holds the seat. Keady, now a resident of Spring Lake, does not live in the district, but his family has owned and operated the Lighthouse Tavern in Waretown there for 30 years. Keady now runs the business. MacArthur was also not a resident of the district when he won the seat two years ago.

It was Keady who triggered the ire of Governor Chris Christie, who told him to “sit down and shut up” at an appearance in Belmar in 2014.

Keady has also worked on social and economic justice issues as founder of the non-profit Educating for Justice. He has travelled repeatedly to Indonesia, campaigning for improvements to workers rights in Nike plants there, as well as speaking throughout this county on college campuses and other venues. He was once deported from Indonesia for his activism.

On Saturday morning, Keady won the endorsement of the Ocean County Democrats and the favored ballots position in that county in the June primary. Also running for the Democratic nomination is Frederick Lavergne, a Burlington County resident who won the endorsement of his county’s Democratic organization.

Keady was a Councilman in Asbury Park from 2005 to 2008, when he stepped down before the end of his four-year term for personal reasons. He unsuccessfully sought to regain a seat on the Council in the 2013 election, and was unsuccessful last year in a run for the state Assembly in the 30th District of southern Monmouth and Northern Ocean counties.

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