Before anyone jumps to conclusions about Tuesday’s school election results, they need to consider the history.
Yes, more than 70 percent of school budgets were approved around the state, according to NJ.com. (The percentage was higher locally.) This may seem like a shockingly high percentage. When placed within its historical context, however, it isn’t.
A quick review of school budget results going back to 1976 shows that in 23 of the last 34 years, including this year, more than two-thirds of budget passed statewide (more than 70 percent passed in 19 of those years); in only five years did less than 60 percent pass — including 1976, when 44 percent passed, the only year in which the numbers dipped below 50.
The lean years, for the most part, correspond with public anger over New Jersey taxes — 1990 and 1991 were the Florio backlash years, 2006 was the property tax reform/budget shutdown year, 1994 featured Christie Whitman’s assault on spending and the 1976 votes came just a month after the creation of the first state income tax in response to court rulings on education funding (Robinson v. Cahill).
Given this history, perhaps yesterday’s results were surprising. Republicans, for instance, are trying to cast Jon Corzine in the role of Jim Florio and re-stoke the anger of that earlier era. And voters are angry about a lot of things — at least according to polls that show a majority of New Jerseyans disapproving of the governor’s efforts to date.
And yet, most budget passed — many by comfortable margins.
What does this mean? It is difficult to say. There are two historical trends butting up against each other — one in which a generalized state-level public anger is taken out on school budgets and another in which voters tend to support educational spending.
Remember, Jim Florio lost by less than 25,000 votes to Whitman in 1993 despite being one of the most unpopular governors in the state’s history and Brendan Byrne won a second term in 1977 despite predictions to the contrary. And Robert Menendez, in the 2006 Senate race, was down by double digits in the polls late in the campaign against Tom Kean Jr. — and he won by double digits.
I have no idea where all of this is going. What I do know, however, is that we have a long way to go before voters have to decide (we don’t even have an official Republican challenger yet). And yesterday’s results did little to clarify this.
Hank Kalet 
My view is that the two are separate. I have voted against school budgets in the past, when I felt that the school board was trying to get blood from a well-drained stone. This year, they actually cut some expenses to keep the budget at a point where taxes did not go up, so they got a \’yes\’ from me.State-wide, people vote the party line, so a Republican is always starting with a disadvantage. And the fact that the Republicans put forward lousy candidates (Doug Forrester? Brett Schundler? That\’s the best the GOP can do?) hasn\’t helped. And of course with the court system basically allowing the Dems to do what they want (see: Torricelli/Menendez) we Republicans are pretty much SOL in this state.I like what I\’ve seen from Chris Christie so far and he should be a good candidate against a very weakened Corzine (unless Lonegan, another Schundler-like wack-job, savages him in the primary). But I expect Corzine to win again, saddling us with another 4 years of his financial genius.
In September 2006, in the midst of a hard-fought US Senate campaign being dominated by accusations of corruption, Chris Christie authorizes a last minute subpoena that plays into Tom Kean Jr.\’s political attacks against Bob Menendez. Later, after the election, the last minute subpoena was dropped. Christie is a phoney baloney partisan hack who was at the beck and call of the Bush controlled DOJ in 2006.