Hank Kalet

Stealing Copper, my newest chapbook, will be published in July by Finishing Line Press. Pre-order it here.

Here is an excerpt:

My Time Off piece on The Grip Weeds‘ new record and upcoming show in Bordentown is up on the website.

On the album, How I Won the War, the band explores conflict as it works toward resolution — doing so brashly, melodically and with a renewed vigor born of renewed commitment.

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The indictment of U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez on corruption charges was not unexpected — we’d been hearing about it for weeks via anonymously sources stories tied to the senator’s history of questionable conduct. But it hit yesterday like a bomb.

Senate Democrats have remained quiet, aside from fellow N.J. Sen. Cory Booker, though New Jersey’s Democratic establishment has been quick to jump to Menendez’s defense (I received a slew of press releases yesterday). The Star-Ledger was quick on the draw, calling in an editorial for the senator to resign, as was The Asbury Park Press. (The Record says it is too early to make that call.)

I’m conflicted — having a senator stay in office while he fights corruption charges means the state will lack strong representation, but pushing him out the door before he gets his day in court means we would be convicting him before a trial. For now, I think I agree with The Record — not today, but not necessarily never.

The split between the GOP and Democrats on this is not surprising — though it may reflect issues that reach beyond Menendez’s alleged conduct and instead be a response to this question: What happens if Menendez resigns? The process is less than straightforward — as this NJ Spotlight story by Mark Margyar following Frank Lautenberg’s death points out:

Republican Gov. Chris Christie, who led the state’s political establishment in eulogizing Lautenberg’s accomplishments yesterday, has the right to appoint an interim senator to succeed the self-made multi-millionaire from Paterson who has represented New Jersey in the Senate for 28 of the past 30 years.

But it is not clear from the language in New Jersey’s election statute whether Christie’s choice can serve for 17 months until November 2014, as Christie would prefer, or will have to run in November, as Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D-Gloucester) and Assemblyman John Wisniewski (D-Middlesex), the state’s Democratic chairman, are already demanding.

The key issue, Magyar writes, is “conflicting statutes”:

Both the U.S. Constitution and N.J.S.A. 19:3-26 allow Christie to appoint a successor to Lautenberg who would serve until the next general election, which is scheduled for November. However, N.J.S.A. 19:27-6 holds that if the vacancy occurs in the 70 days before a primary election — as is the case with Lautenberg’s death the day before today’s primary — the new appointee can serve until the second succeeding election, which would be November 2014. Under that statute, the governor has the right to call a special election, but is not obligated to do so — an interpretation that the nonpartisan Office of Legislative Services agreed with in an advisory opinion issued yesterday.

Christie ultimately appointed his attorney general, Jeffrey Chiesa, and scheduled a special election for three weeks before Election Day — when he was atop the ballot and seeking re-election. It was widely speculated at the time that Christie’s decision was designed to appease Democrats while limiting the Senate race’s impact (the assumption was that Booker would draw more Democrats to the polls and eat into Christie’s likely margin of victory). Little thought appears to have been given to Republican politics.

That is not likely to be the case this time, if Menendez resigns. We have no way of knowing what Christie might put on the table, but one can assume that his presidential aspirations — and the need to appeal to conservatives — will create a different calculus this time out. Republicans control the U.S. Senate 54-44, with two independents caucusing with the Democrats, and adding a 55th to the tally can only help the GOP cause. His audience has shifted, which could alter his approach.

Has this played into the Democrats’ thinking? We can’t know for sure, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it has. After all, a neutered Menendez is better for the Democrats than a GOP replacement, even if the replacement will only serve temporarily.

The situation may be rare — a confluence potential senate vacancies and divided government — but it also is problematic: On the one hand, the state is left with a compromised senator; on the other, the state gets an unelected senator from the opposing party who is serving primarily to further the national ambitions of a sitting governor. Given the choice, it’s easy to see why the Democrats are rallying around Menendez.

Were this a state senator or assembly member — or even a local council member — the vacancy would be filled temporarily by someone of the same political party, as spelled out by the state constitution. Is this perfect? No. But it comes closer to respecting the wishes of the electorate than what exists now and might remove the disincentive currently in place.

As the National Council of State Legislatures points out, there are numerous ways this can be done, ranging from pure gubernatorial appointment to the calling of a special election.  And it’s not like the current arrangement is writ in stone — it is based on conflicting statutes and can be changed, as the creation of a lieutenant governor’s position shows.

Nothing is going to change in the short-term — the political interests of both sides are too great. That doesn’t mean it can’t change down the road.

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Police raid Tent City in Lakewood in 2012. Photo by Sherry Rubel.

The National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty issued a report called “No Safe Place” in December that criticized American cities for failing to address the causes of homelessness and instead criminalizing the problem. According to the report:

Over 12.8% of the nation’s supply of low income housing has been permanently lost since 2001, resulting in large part, from a decrease in funding for federally subsidized housing since the 1970s. The shortage of affordable housing is particularly difficult for extremely low-income renters who, in the wake of the foreclosure crisis, are competing for fewer and fewer affordable units. In many American cities there are fewer emergency shelter beds than homeless people. There are fewer available shelter beds than homeless people in major cities across the nation. In some places, the gap between available space and human need is significant, leaving hundreds or, in some cases, thousands of people with no choice but to struggle for survival in outdoor, public places.

Despite a lack of affordable housing and shelter space, many cities have chosen to criminally punish people living on the street for doing what any human being must do to survive. The Law Center surveyed 187 cities and assessed the number and type of municipal codes that criminalize the life-sustaining behaviors of homeless people. The results of our research show that the criminalization of necessary human activities is all too common in cities across the country.

The report found that most of these cities had laws on the books that are used to target homeless people, including bans on sleeping or camping in public or prohibitions against providing food to homeless people.

I came across the report as I was researching a story for NJ Spotlight on a settlement in New Brunswick over its use of anti-begging laws to control its homeless population. The city agreed to repeal the two ordinances — one banning begging and the other requiring permitting for solicitations in public spaces — and to make a contribution to Elijah’s Promise, the city soup kitchen that provides the bulk of services to low-income residents.

Supporters of such restrictions usually point to safety and sanitary concerns. Consider this report from CNN about a San Francisco church that used a sprinkler system to chase away the homeless. It has ended the practice, but listen to the argument made by church officials as to why they engaged in the practice in the first place.

These arguments are no different than those made by the government of Lakewood (the subject of my poem, Tent City: As an Alien in a Land of Promise, the photo work of Sherry Rubel, and of Jack Ballo’s film Destiny’s Bridge — here is a photo history of the projects we engaged in) or of the push by cities across America (as I said earlier this week, I’ve written about this issue before for In These Times and on this blog).

On Friday, Jennifer Friedenbach, executive director of the Coalition on Homelessness, penned an op-ed in the San Francisco Examiner, that called these laws a violation of human rights. Se noted the 500 or so local anti-homeless codes in place in California — codes “restricting standing, sleeping, camping, resting, panhandling or sharing food” — and compared them to long-defunct vagrancy laws.

While the Supreme Court overturned anti-vagrancy laws in the early 1970s, finding they encouraged arbitrary and erratic arrests, we have only replaced those laws with new ones still targeting destitute people. Since 2000, statewide arrests for vagrancy offenses have increased by 77 percent, even as arrests for disorderly conduct have decreased by 48 percent, indicating that homeless people are punished for their housing status, not their behavior.

These laws are indicative of our unease with homelessness and our unwillingness to do much about it, especially if it affects us in any way. We occasionally talk a good game — a couple of dollars here and there for a new shelter, perhaps, some hand-wringing about the conditions under which the homeless live — but real solutions are off the table.

Rather than fixing the problem — with higher-paying jobs, low-income and supportive housing, broadly accessible mental health services, etc. — we use our police powers to keep the homeless from being visible. One result, as Friedenbach writes, is the creation of “additional barriers to getting off the streets.”

The energy to pass anti-homeless measures, deploy police, and legal proceedings all cost a great deal, but only accomplish exacerbating the misery experienced by impoverished people. Politicians must raise anti-homeless fervor to pass blatantly unfair laws, resulting in less support directed toward solutions by private citizens, and public monies are diverted to an endless cycle of ticketing, courts, jails and police interactions.

As I’ve written before, we treat the homeless the same way we treat trash — as lacking value. They are the American capitalist system’s waste product, the effluent dumped into the environment after the economic process runs its course.

The advocates I talked with about the New Brunswick ordinances and the others in place around the state say they represent the criminalization of poverty.

Jeffrey Wild, an attorney who represented the residents of Tent City and who is a founding board member of the New Jersey Coalition to End Homelessness, told me “it happens in every town, the criminalization of homelessness to one degree or other.”

Lakewood, he said,

passed an ordinance in the middle of winter that outlawed the use of wood-burning stoves, which he said was specifically aimed ed at the men and women using such stoves in the Lakewood woods. Other restrictions – on begging, on vagrancy, on sleeping in public – are also used to force the homeless from communities, Wild said. “There are so many ways that municipalities try to get people out of their backyard,” he said. “The criminal laws are a good way, because people don’t question the authority of the police.”

Jeanne LoCicero, deputy legal director for the New Jersey chapter of the ACLU, told me anti-begging and other ordinances “target people who are poor.”

“They target the speech of people who rely on other people to survive,” she said. “They violate the rights of poor people.”

Not all of these efforts are pushed by local governments, as this Canadian news piece points out. Some, like the church sprinklers and the installation of spikes to prevent “rough sleeping” come from private concerns. Either way, Tim Richter, president of the Calgary-based Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness, told Global News, the don’t address homelessness. “They just move it out of sight.”

“This is among the indignities that homeless people will experience on a day-to-day basis,” he said. “If you want to address the issue of homeless people in public spaces then we need to deal with homelessness.” 

Wild agreed. He told me for my Spotlight story that these laws “ultimately allow the problem of homelessness to be swept under the rug.”

“Begging is a form of speech, and I am glad that the ACLU has taken this on,” he said. “It is very important that people have a right to communicate in this way – not just because begging is important for them, but because it also puts a spotlight on the problem. When people see homeless people begging they know there is a problem with homelessness.”

Wild said something may need to be done at the state level to restrict the ability of municipalities to target the homeless. Unfortunately, there is nothing in the works at the moment — at least not here.

As Friedenbach points out “Three states are now introducing legislation to abolish” the use of a variety of laws to target the homeless.

Colorado, California and Oregon have all introduced bills that would ensure all people have the right to rest, eat, pray and occupy a motor vehicle, as long as they are not obstructing passage or on private property without owner’s permission. This isn’t the first time a state has stepped in to halt an unjust practice, but it is an action long past due. Jailing people for being poor will be something surely future generations will look back upon with disdain.

In the meantime, a march for the homeless is planned on April 15 in Trenton:

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It wasn’t that long ago that Rutgers was in the news because a portion of its student body and facility wanted former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice to be removed as its 2014 commencement speaker. The argument was that her involvement in the Iraq war should have disqualified her from speaking, that the lies and distortions proffered to get us into that war showed that she exhibited questionable character and would be a poor representative of the university’s values and a terrible example for students.

In the end, Rice pulled out, saying she did not want to be the focus of graduation, that the focus should be on students. It was a classy move, but really didn’t address the larger issue — who should pick commencement speakers, what does their appearance mean, and should we be inviting outside speakers to speak in the first place? My take last year was that a) the university was right not to rescind the invitation, but that the students not only were right but should have been applauded for engaging in protests and participating in the political discourse; and that b) we should reconsider whether outside commencement speakers makes sense or is necessary.

Rutgers approach this year has been to withhold its announcement, a move that seems foolish in the wake of a debate that was as much about transparency as it was about Rice.

The Rutgers-Rice debate was portrayed as political correctness run amok — especially on the right. Fox News ran with it, as did many other conservative media outlets (Rush Limbaugh mischaracterized what happened on campus as being about “Fifty organized young malcontents”). And perhaps there is some truth to the charge, though it is overly reductive. As I’ve written before, the Rice kerfuffle may have been driven by the left, but attacks on commencement speakers are not solely the province of the left.

Consider what is unfolding at Kean University. As reported by NJ.com (via Northjersey.com), Common is out at Kean thanks to “an outcry from law enforcement, who say that the lyrics of a 15-year-old song paint a sympathetic portrait of a notorious cop-killer.”

Here is what NJ.com said:

Just one day after announcing that the “Glory” composer would speak at the May commencement in Newark the university decided to pursue “other speaker options,” a spokeswoman told the site.

Common, 43, who was born Lonnie Rashid Lynn, has previously drawn the ire of the State Police over 2000’s “A Song for Assata,” about Joanne Chesimard, who was convicted of the 1973 killing of Trooper Werner Foerster. Chesimard was formerly known as Assata Shakur.

In the song, Common describes Shakur’s “power and pride” as “beautiful”, followed by the line “May God bless your soul.”

Police called Kean’s invitation to Common “a slap in the face.” The unions weighed in via Northjersey.com:

Chris Burgos, president of the State Troopers Fraternal Association of New Jersey, called the choice of the rapper as Kean’s commencement speaker a “slap in the face” to those who serve and protect.

“What is troubling here is that a state university that is subsidized with state taxpayer funds, is once again being questioned on their decision-making at the highest levels,” Burgos said in an emailed statement.

I don’t want to weigh in on the Chesimard/Shakur aspect of this story, except to say that Kean didn’t invite Chesimard/Shakur. It invited Common, a rapper with a huge following, a songwriter who recently won an Oscar for best song for “Glory,” who has not been ashamed to discuss his politics or use them in his work. The question here is whether his politics should rule him out as a commencement speaker — which is the same question the supporters of Rice asked during the Rutgers controversy. Or, to put it another way: Should any particular group have veto power over who speaks at a commencement?

It is too early to know whether there will be an outcry in response to Kean’s decision to rescind its invite to Common — this is based on news reports, which also have university spokeswoman Susan Kayne saying the Monday announcement of the rapper’s selection was issued “prematurely.”

I’d like to think there will be, that the same commitment to free speech and vibrant debate that supporters of Rice showed last April will be shown here. We need a vibrant debate about artistic freedom, about Chesimard/Shakur, about the need for outside commencement speakers.

I’m not banking on this happening — our hyper-partisan times mean that those criticizing Rutgers students in the spring are likely to praise police and Kean this time around, and that many who called for rescinding the Rice invite will be defending Common. I truly hope I am wrong about this.

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