Opportunism knocks

Why is that Republicans never concern themselves with political reform when they are the majority party?

Consider the record: The party ran in 1991, in the wake of the unpopular Jim Florio tax hike, on a platform that included recall of elected officials and initiative and referendum. They controlled the Legislature for 10 years, the governor’s mansion for eight, and we still have no I&R.

And then, after the McGreevey administration came to power, the GOP started pushing for pay-to-play reforms — something that was off the table when the Whitman administration was botching E-ZPass and lottery contracts.

I raise this question after reading an Associated Press report saying that a pair of Morris County Republicans want to create a limited version of I&R for spending measures. The Assembly members, Richard Merkt and Joseph Pennacchio, say their plan would allow citizens to have a direct say in how public money is spent.

“This proposal would give New Jersey citizens direct control over state tax, spending and borrowing decisions,” Merkt said. “Trenton has failed the taxpayers of New Jersey and it is time that we put decision-making power back in the hands of the people.”

The plan, according to the AP report, would allow citizens to:

post questions on the ballot if they get signatures from 25 percent of registered voters in 14 of the state’s 21 counties. If passed by voters, a proposal would become law within 60 days. It could be stopped only if two-thirds of both houses of the Legislature voted to overturn the voter approval.

Put another way, petitioners could bypass some of the state’s largest and densest counties (Bergen, Camden, Essex, Hudson, Middlesex and Passaic — about half the state’s population) and still get something on the ballot. That’s absurd.

That doesn’t mean we should dismiss I&R out of hand. On the contrary, I&R theoretically enhances our democracy — provided there are tight controls on money spent during I&R campaigns.

But we have to ask hard questions not only about the plan being floated by Merkt and Pennachio but about the motivations behind it. The Assembly members say they are making their proposal — destined to die in committee — because of the summer’s budget fiasco and sales tax hike and the recent approval of money for stem cell research and needle exchange programs, but I have to wonder.

After all, we are entering an election year in which the entire Legislature is up for election, a Legislature that is not exactly popular in public opinion polls. Simply put, the proposal smacks of the kind of political opportunism that gave us the GOP majority in the early 1990s, a majority that slashed the state income tax without thought to future budgets, while burying its own reform platform in the back of its storage closet.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

Author: hankkalet

Hank Kalet is a poet and freelance journalist. He is the economic needs reporter for NJ Spotlight, teaches journalism at Rutgers University and writing at Middlesex County College and Brookdale Community College. He writes a semi-monthly column for the Progressive Populist. He is a lifelong fan of the New York Mets and New York Knicks, drinks too much coffee and attends as many Bruce Springsteen concerts as his meager finances will allow. He lives in South Brunswick with his wife Annie. View all posts by hankkalet