Corzine’s Agenda is Dependent on Support from Indicted Senators

When New Jersey voters rejected Governor Corzine’s plan to borrow $450 million dollars to fund stem cell research last November, the Governor blamed the defeat on low voter turnout. About 30% of the electorate turned out to vote. Our entire state legislature was up for election and the campaign was dominated by rhetoric of cleaning up corruption and property tax relief, like most every campaign in recent memory. 70% of the electorate wasn’t inspired to vote.

Maybe more people would have voted if the campaign was about the following issues:

Should New Jersey eliminate the death penalty?

Should all residents employed in New Jersey be entitled to take off 10 weeks per year, with pay, to care for a family member?

Should all children over the age of 6 months be required to be injected with flu shots in order to attend school or day care?

Should the state Department of Community Affairs, the agency that awards state grants and aid to towns throughout the state, be headed by a career politician who has been implicated in a federal “whistle blower” suit over financial improprieties in the city that he governed as Mayor, while he also served in the state legislature?

Should state spending on education be increased immediately by $530 million with no reduction in the amount sent to school districts that spend twice the state average per pupil and have the lowest test scores or graduation rates?

Should another $800 million per year, not including construction costs, be spent on expanding the school system to include mandatory pre-kindergarten education for all New Jersey children?

Should New Jersey’s toll roads be mortgaged by $20 billion dollars and tolls raised by 150% to pay that debt? Should the new government entity, “a public benefit corporation” that will manage the toll roads be “immune from politics,” i.e., not subject to the will of the people as expressed in future elections or by future governors or legislatures?

None of these issues were broadly discussed during the election, yet all have been acted on (or will soon be acted on), by the governor and the legislature since the election that was only two months ago. During the campaign, Governor Corzine actually said he wouldn’t discuss some of these issues until after the election, because he didn’t want them to become “political footballs.” In other words, he didn’t want a candidate’s stand on any of those issues to influence your vote, or for your stand on any of these issues to inspire you to vote.

While these issues may not have influenced your vote, if you voted, they will influence your life, for better of worse.

There are three politicians whose votes will count on these issues and whose political careers have been extended because of them. Last year State Senators Wayne Bryant (D-Camden) and Sharpe James (D-Essex) were indicted by the US Attorney of federal corruption charges. Bryant was charged with using his influence as a Senator to get no show jobs to pad his income and pension. James, who was also Mayor of Newark, was charged with using the Newark treasury as his personal ATM. Additionally, Senator Joseph Coniglio (D-Bergen) has been informed by the US Attorney that he is the subject of a federal corruption probe for influence peddling. None of these Senators were supported by their party for re-election, yet they continue to serve in the Senate until their terms expire next week.

Also indicted on corruption charges last year were Assemblymen Mims Hackett (D-Essex) and Alfred Steele (D-Passaic). These assemblymen were forced by the Democratic party leadership to resign their seats in the legislature and their candidacies for re-election.

None of these men have been convicted, so why the double standard of the assemblymen having to resign while the senators continue to serve? Because if the senators were to resign, the balance of power in the Senate would have shifted to the Republican party. The Democrats control the senate by a 22-18 margin. If the Democrats lost those three votes, the aggressive agenda that you didn’t get to vote on, but that has been rammed through the lame duck legislative session, would not have become a reality.

That is the voter turnout that Governor Corzine was really concerned about in 2007.