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.

Rushing to judgmentresults in rushed judgments

The Asbury Park Press today dresses down the state Legislature for its painfully undemocratic and incredibly inefficient practice of loading legislation into the last two months of its two-year session — the so-called lame-duck period between the legislative elections and the swearing in of newly elected legislators.

On the final day of the lame-duck legislative session last week, 89 bills were pushed through — about one-fourth the total number of bills approved by lawmakers in 2006-07. On that final day, 177 bills were up for consideration. Imagine the amount of caffeine flowing through the Statehouse veins that day. Imagine the quality of the decision-making.

Due deliberation was in short supply. Many of the bills were approved with little chance for public review or debate. Some of the most controversial weren’t introduced until days before the final voting session. How could the Legislature give a full vetting to any of them? It couldn’t and it didn’t.

The reason this is done, as the Press points out, is “to get legislation passed that might not fly if it were subject to closer examination by lawmakers and the public” — i.e., at a time when legislators might have to explain their actions to voters.

The lame-duck session does little to disabuse the public of the notion that New Jersey government is dysfunctional. The array of bills that get considered during this marathon session is mind boggling in its scope.

Some — like the bill repealing the death penalty — are positive changes. Others — like legislation allowing for price adjustments in public contracts ($), which thankfully failed to win approval — do little to advance the public interest.

On others — like the new state school funding formula, which was obviously delayed until December to avoid the electoral ramifications and then rushed through so that it could take effect in 2008 — the jury is still out.

Reform is needed. Rules limiting the number of bills that can be considered should be put in place and public officials need to commit themselves to ensuring that each piece of legislation gets the hearing it deserves. As the Press points out:

Trust in New Jersey government is nonexistent. It won’t be restored if citizens don’t have faith that decisions are made openly, with full debate and with their best interests in mind.

Process counts. Rushed decisions mean bad decisions. The Legislature is living proof.

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

E-mail me by clicking here.

Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.

Race, gender and the presidential campaign

During the last week or so, the cable news channels have turned their attentions to some questionable comments both by the presidential candidates and their surrogates, comments that skirt the edges of the kind of racial and gender codes long used by the rightwing in this country.

The cocaine allusion, the reaction to the “tear,” the various veiled references to type — all of it has done little to further debate on the Democratic side, making it less likely that two key segments of the Democratic alliance will be able to work together once the primaries have concluded.

No one comes off well in this tussle. All three of the major candidates have been guilty — either directly or through a surrogate — of playing these games. And no one can benefit — at least not in a larger sense.

John Nichols attempts to put all of this in perspective in this post on The Nation:

Where both Clinton and Obama are misguided is in their shared attempt to score political points rather than to step back from the abyss of an ugly discourse and to seek the clarity that is so frequently absent from our politics.

Neither Clinton nor Obama is using history well or wisely. Neither is telling us what those of us who recognize the significance of the King-Johnson collaboration – and, for a brief shining moment it was a collaboration –need to hear. Neither is answering the fundamental questions: How, as president, would they relate to social and political movements? Would they invite the Martin Kings and the Frederick Douglasses of the twenty-first century to the White House? Would either of these two candidates, as president, sit down with those demanding transformational change, craft policies with supposed radicals, coordinate political strategies with influential outsiders – as did both Lyndon Johnson in the 1960s and Abraham Lincoln in the 1860s?

The shame is that none of the candidates of either party have shown any sense that they are even thinking of these questions, let alone offering us answers.

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

E-mail me by clicking here.

Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.

Toll plan, redux — traffic on Rt. 1 and Rt. 130

One more thing about the toll plan: Will it force drivers from the Turnpike onto local roads like Route 1 and Route 130? How can it not?

(E)conomists say the higher tolls could mean less money spent at a restaurant or hardware store, or drivers clogging local roads to avoid the tolls.

“There will be strategies emerging to avoid bearing those costs,” said James W. Hughes, the dean of the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University.

Be prepared for an increase in traffic in South Brunswick and Cranbury.

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

E-mail me by clicking here.

Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.