I’ve always done my best to keep Passaic County on the right track but also to do more – to deliver not just results, but a higher level of service that works to get resources and information out to constituents, and stands up for our shared values. With your support, I’ll continue to be a champion for Passaic County and the common-sense solutions that help all of us thrive.
John Bartlett is an attorney and public official with a record of results in county government. He’s also a homeowner, a husband, and a dad. As a lawyer and a leader, he stands up for the values most New Jerseyans share: practical approaches to public challenges, supporting business as the driver of economic growth and quality of life in the region, and ensuring equality and opportunity for all of us.
Family, Education, and Career
I’m the son of a country doctor. As a kid, I remember riding with dad on house calls. He kept his doctor’s bag in the back of his pickup truck, with a chainsaw in case a downed tree ever stood between him and a patient. Dad’s example of commitment and service guides me every day.
John and his wife, Dr. Khyati Joshi, moved to New Jersey after John finished law school, and have lived in Wayne for 18 years. 
As an interfaith family, their story is the American story in all its rich diversity: John’s family has been in the U.S. for generations, and Khyati immigrated from India as a child. The family celebrates and observes both Christian and Hindu traditions; they attend St. John’s Episcopal Church in Montclair, and are involved with Hindu temples in our area.
John is a graduate of Harvard Law School and received his bachelor’s degree with honors from Brown University. He was also a Raoul Wallenberg Scholar at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he met Khyati. She is a professor at Fairleigh Dickinson University and the author of numerous books on race and religion in America.
While living in Jerusalem, John wrote part-time for The Associated Press. Before law school, he also served as communications director for the national anti-crime organization Fight Crime: Invest in Kids in Washington, D.C., and as a barista at Starbucks.
John has been recognized with the highest professional rating for attorneys, AV-Preeminent, from Martindale-Hubbell, and he was selected among the New Jersey Law Journal‘s “Forty Under 40” promising young attorneys in 2010. He is a Partner in Murphy Orlando LLC, where his practice includes litigation and counseling for non-profit organizations, election and campaign finance law, and other complex business and appellate cases.
Proven Results
County government is where the rubber meets the road: Where all those services they debate in Washington and Trenton actually get delivered to the rest of us. That means we’re close enough to see where work is needed, and big enough to provide solutions at a scale that’s effective and efficient.
As a Freeholder and County Commissioner, John has increased County services to taxpayers while holding the line on tax increases – balancing every budget, with no tax levy increase in 6 of the last 8 years. In fact, if you live in most Passaic County towns, you’re paying less in county taxes than you were in 2018.
When it comes to governing, John has worked with his colleagues to:
- Bring more than $600 million in federal transportation funding into our county, for projects as big as Routes 46/3 and as small as new, safer crosswalks in our towns and rails-to-trails projects connecting Passaic and Morris Counties;
- Improve education by building new STEM and Biotech academies at PCTI, and expanding PCCC’s suburban campuses to provide more opportunities for adult learners and traditional students who want to get a head start on college;
- Supported new improvements and programming in the County parks system, including a new riverfront park in Passaic, and preparing our historic sites to be part of America’s 250th celebrations in 2026;
- Expanded business support from our Economic Development division, through outreach and special programming;
- Helped special-needs children learn to swim by opening the PCTI pool to Wayne parents and non-profit autism swim teams on weekends, and worked with the Passaic County Surrogate to educate parents about trusts and guardianships;
- Increased County government’s responsiveness to diverse communities with multi-lingual outreach on social services and the Census, and new appointments to the county’s volunteer boards and commissions; and
- Helped Passaic County families and businesses deal with the COVID19 pandemic by pushing CARES Act and American Rescue Plan funding out in the the community with COVID testing, vaccination, food aid, business support, and eviction and foreclosure relief reaching every corner of Passaic County.
After rising through leadership on the North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority, bringing vital funds into our region under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, John was elected in 2025 to represent New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Delaware on the National Association of Regional Councils.
Standing Up For Our Values
There are moments that call us to rise above party and politics and stand up for the universal principles that connect us all as Americans.
In 12 years of County service, and as an attorney, John has gained a reputation as someone who stands up and speaks out on the moral issues that define America today:
- joining litigation against Donald Trump’s intimidation of minority communities by signing a Supreme Court amicus brief against the Census 2020 “citizenship question”;
- standing up to Chris Christie when he wanted to take funding away from an important road project in our region, and when he tried to withhold health care funding for older women and men in Passaic County’s health care facilities;
- spearheading an interfaith effort to provide resources for refugee families, by working with local congregations and non-profits;
- supporting marriage equality when New Jersey’s legislature was debating it, and when the U.S. Supreme Court was considering Hollingsworth v. Perry;
- protecting everyone’s right to vote without intimidation, by training lawyers across New Jersey to protect voters on Election Day.
Throughout his legal career, and as an elected official, John has been one of our state’s leading voices on voting rights. He served on the Democratic National Committee’s legal team in the nation’s longest-running Voting Rights Act litigation, successfully protecting a court-ordered ban on the Republican National Committee and New Jersey Republican State Committee engaging in racially-targeted voter suppression activities. In 2013, he represented communities of color and people with disabilities to oppose Governor Christie’s confusing, wasteful, and unnecessary scheme to hold two different state-wide elections within three weeks. He’s trained lawyers across New Jersey to protect vulnerable voters on Election Day, and in 2020, he joined the Biden-Harris legal team on the ground in Pennsylvania to protect the right of all voters to cast their ballots safely and securely.
With his experience and commitment to thoughtful and responsive public service, and effective collaboration with federal, state, and local allies, John continues to help all kinds of people and communities across our region.