Governor Mikie Sherrill has 45 days from Dale Caldwell's resignation to make the appointment. The constitution sets the rules — and hands the new lieutenant governor a second job.
Governor Mikie Sherrill accepted Dale Caldwell's resignation as lieutenant governor on September 25, and a clock written into the New Jersey Constitution started running. Sherrill has 45 days from the vacancy to appoint a successor, a deadline of November 9. The person she picks will serve the remainder of a term that runs to January 2030.
New Jersey created the office in 2005
New Jersey voters put the lieutenant governor's office in the constitution on November 8, 2005, with about 56 percent of the vote, after the state's old succession system failed twice in four years.
Governor Christine Todd Whitman resigned in January 2001 to head the Environmental Protection Agency, and Donald DiFrancesco, the Senate president, became acting governor, serving for nearly a year while keeping his legislative seat. The arrangement wobbled at the end: DiFrancesco's term as Senate president ran out slightly before the governor's term did, and in January 2002 four people served as acting governor in eight days. Attorney General John Farmer held the office for roughly ninety minutes while the new Senate, split evenly between the parties, organized; then co-Senate Presidents John Bennett and Richard Codey divided the remaining week between them before Jim McGreevey's inauguration on January 15.
When McGreevey resigned in November 2004, Codey became acting governor again, this time for fourteen months, serving as governor and Senate president, the last person to hold both offices simultaneously. Voters approved the lieutenant governor amendment 51 weeks into that tenure.
The first lieutenant governor was Kim Guadagno, elected on Governor Chris Christie's ticket in 2009, who served two full terms. The office's first vacancy came with Sheila Oliver's death on August 1, 2023. Governor Phil Murphy named Tahesha Way, the sitting secretary of state, to fill it, an appointment that required no Senate confirmation. Way held both offices until January, when Sherrill and Caldwell were sworn in.
Caldwell is the first lieutenant governor to resign. His exit is the second vacancy the office has ever had.
The constitution sets the 45-day deadline
Article V, Section I, of the New Jersey Constitution gives the governor alone the power to appoint a successor. The Senate has no role in it and no confirmation vote takes place.
The governing sentence provides that “The Governor shall appoint a Lieutenant Governor within forty-five days of the occurrence of the vacancy to fill the unexpired term.” The constitution names no consequence if the deadline passes. An appointee fills the unexpired term, which runs four years from the third Tuesday in January; the current term ends in January 2030.
The office's constitutional core is succession and substitution. The lieutenant governor steps in as acting governor whenever the governor is out of state or unable to serve, and takes the office outright if the governor dies, resigns, or is removed. Caldwell exercised those powers as recently as August, serving three days as acting governor while Sherrill was out of state, according to the New Jersey Globe. The constitution also lets the governor send the lieutenant governor around the state as a stand-in, appearing at events and announcements on the administration's behalf.
While the seat sits vacant, the Senate president is next in the succession order, and were both offices to open at once, the Senate president would become governor; if the Senate president cannot serve, the Speaker of the General Assembly follows, and beyond the Speaker the constitution defers to an order set by law. The constitution names no interim lieutenant governor; the seat stays empty until the governor appoints.
The appointment comes with a second assignment
The constitution gives the lieutenant governor a second job; the office by itself carries no independent duties beyond standing next in line, and the department assignment is what makes it a working job. The constitution directs the governor to appoint the lieutenant governor as head of a principal department or another executive agency, to delegate gubernatorial duties to the office, or both. Attorney general is the one exception, and the constitution offers no reason.
All four lieutenant governors have headed a department. Guadagno and Way ran the secretary of state's office; Oliver ran the Department of Community Affairs. No lieutenant governor has relied on the delegation option alone. Caldwell held the secretary of state's office at the same time as the lieutenant governorship, so his resignation vacated both offices at once.
Shirley Emehelu, the acting state comptroller, took over the Department of State on September 25, the day Sherrill accepted the resignation. The secretary of state is the state's top election officer, certifying candidates for the ballot and attesting to election totals; the office also handles business registrations and licensing, according to NJ Spotlight News.
The governor tied the appointment to the November election, expressing confidence that Emehelu and the department would carry the state through a busy election season. Emehelu served in the U.S. Department of Justice and the state Attorney General's office, according to the governor's announcement.
If the new lieutenant governor also serves as secretary of state, no Senate confirmation occurs at any point in the process. The same exemption covers whichever department the lieutenant governor heads. If Sherrill names anyone else as secretary of state permanently, the appointment requires the advice and consent of the Senate. Emehelu, meanwhile, continues to serve on an acting basis while Sherrill makes her choice, according to CBS News.
Caldwell's resignation came one day after the public release of an investigation, commissioned by the governor's chief ethics officer, that substantiated workplace-policy and ethics violations, according to the report and the governor's statement accompanying it. Caldwell denied the accusations in a written response, and his attorney has called the investigation one-sided and said it denied him due process. The review was led by a former attorney general from the Christie administration, through the law firm Lowenstein Sandler.
Names of possible appointments are already circulating in Trenton — former Assemblywoman Shavonda Sumter, state chief operating officer Kellie Doucette, even Emehelu herself, according to NJ.com.
As of October 4, Sherrill had not named a replacement and offered no timetable beyond a promise to move “swiftly and thoughtfully.”
Sources
• Governor Mikie Sherrill, Office of the Governor, "Governor Sherrill Releases Report on Investigation into Lieutenant Governor Caldwell, Calls for Resignation" (September 24, 2026)
• Governor Mikie Sherrill, Office of the Governor, "Governor Sherrill on the Resignation of Lieutenant Governor Dale Caldwell" (September 25, 2026)
• New Jersey Division of Elections, "Official List of Ballot Questions with the Tabulation of Votes," November 8, 2005 (certified December 16, 2005)
• New Jersey Legislature, The Constitution of the State of New Jersey, Article V, Sections I and IV (current through the 2005 amendment, effective January 17, 2006)
• CBS News, report on the appointment of Shirley Emehelu as acting secretary of state (September 25, 2026)
• NBC News, report on the transfer of gubernatorial power to Senate President Richard Codey (November 2004)
• New Jersey Globe, report on Lieutenant Governor Caldwell's service as acting governor (September 2026)
• New Jersey Monitor, report on the appointment of Tahesha Way as lieutenant governor (September 2023)
• NJ Spotlight News, "Sherrill shuffles NJ election leadership after Caldwell resignation" (September 30, 2026)
• NJ.com, "Mikie's World" column, report on lieutenant governor succession speculation (October 3, 2026)
• Politico, report on Governor Sherrill's response to the lieutenant governor vacancy (September 2026)
• The Hill, report on the Caldwell ethics findings and the attorney response (September 25, 2026)
• Lowenstein Sandler LLP, "Investigation Report re: Lieutenant Governor Dale G. Caldwell" (September 23, 2026; released by the Office of the Governor, September 24, 2026)
• Wikipedia, "Lieutenant Governor of New Jersey" and "John O. Bennett" (accessed October 3, 2026)
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