Sussex County’s State Assemblyman Parker Space used a racist remark during the New Jersey Herald Republican Assembly debate on Tuesday.

The candidates on stage, as well as many in attendance, chuckled when Space declared that we should bring back public lynching for drug dealers.

“The drug dealers have to be hung high at noon. Right in the square, in the Green. You only have to hang two of them, nobody else, right? Capital punishment!”

You can see and hear his comments on the New Jersey Herald web site.  Assemblyman Space’s remarks starts around time index 1:01:30.

When asked by NJ.com to explain his remark, Space dismissed it as “a sarcastic joke”.

That seems to be his go-to defense for inappropriate comments unbecoming of a lawmaker. He used that same deflection during before his 2015 election to the Assembly when declaring “There is nothing better than an unregistered gun, believe me.”

This is an embarrassment for Sussex County. Our community deserves better representation in Trenton than this.