funeral services for Congressman Donald Payne Jr are being arranged for next week the 65-year-old Essex County Democrat died on Wednesday after suffering a cardiac episode earlier this month that left him in a coma tributes from his friends and colleagues are continuing to pour in from across the country here at home though there are also hard conversations starting to take place about who will fill the six-term congressman's empty seat and just how long it could remain empty senior political correspondent David Cruz reports in some places the death of a congressman is cause for pause and reflection appreciation and even reverence in the 10th congressional district of New Jersey though the vacancy created by the death of Donald Payne Jr had been the subject of speculation for some time now but unless the governor decides that there should be a special election Payne's seat could go unfilled until January says analyst Micha Rasmus and of course that can be a serious problem in such a um tightly contested House of Representatives which has been the case for the last two sessions probably going to be the case again so you don't want to leave a seat vacant for any length of time you don't know when there's going to be a tough Vote or a tight vote where every vote counts but filling the seat on an interim basis is as they say complicated unlike a vacancy in the US Senate the governor doesn't appoint a replacement in the case of a congressional vacancy Brett pugach is an election law attorney who most recently argued the groundbreaking County Line case he says the governor does have a role to play in choosing the process of succession if not the successor the governor can designate a special election and in which case he'd have to designate a particular day for the special election as well as a day for a special primary election or he can designate the next general election as the date uh for this kind of special election for for this to be filled the governor today said he hadn't thought about much Beyond talking with and sharing condolences with the congressman's family we're not going to make any news until we do the rightful uh sendoff for D which will be sometime next week um but I I do have a decision to make which uh in terms of how do you how you proceed I don't have a decision to make as to who that's that's the decision by others but exactly what this looks like but no news to make on that today but the law is unclear on whether there would be a primary before the general election in November if the governor chose that date or whether Party leaders in Hudson Union and Essex which make up the 10th congressional district would select the candidate and remember a double header election in November would a fill what's left of pay's term and then B choose the next member of Congress that part is a little bit unclear from the statutes and be interesting to see you know how that would happen I'd imagine there's probably a lot of pressure that's going to be put on the governor to do the first route which is the special election route um and part of that stems from the fact that you can get the vacancy filled quicker right now Republicans have a slim five seat majority with six vacancies in the house in the good old days members didn't do much but campaign in the two months leading to election day but this is a congress where moves to vacate the speaker can come with the minute's notice and who knows what crises real or imagined members can come up with in this Brave New World I'll be honest with you I I I don't know too much about the protocols and what comes next um and and and how that proceeds um so right now I'm going to just kind of focus in on on the of my colleague but look what I will say is that in Congress we Face a very uh slim narrow margin between the two parties uh so we have to be very careful about what next steps we do and try to make sure that we are giving the people New Jersey the kind of representation that they deserve you don't know given all the crisis that are going on in the world when there might be an important vote that comes up that you don't know about and so if that happens you want to have that seat F filled as quickly as possible as for who might be in line for the seat there is intense speculation there as well but in deference to the family most of the individuals mentioned chose not to comment until after the congressman is laid to rest I'm David Cruz NJ Spotlight news [Music]