Gifts For Trenton Dems, Rivera-Soto and The NJEA

By Art Gallagher

Assembly Minority Leader Alex DeCroce simultaneously played the roles of Scrooge and Santa Claus this week.

With his inartful comments about people receiving unemployment benefits, and his equally ignoble apology wherein he tried to deflect the attention to the dual office holding of the Legislature’s Democratic leadership and accused Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver of playing the race card in her criticism of his remarks, DeCroce appeared as Scrooge to “these people” on the unemployment dole and Santa to the Trenton Democrats, Supreme Court Justice Rivera-Soto and the NJEA.

While the Legislature should be focused on reforming civil service and COAH before the 2 % property tax increase cap takes effect on January 1, the leadership was engaged in what Governor Christie called a “food fight” over DeCroce’s gaffes.

Rather than drawing attention to dual office holding and Oliver’s willingness to play the race card, DeCroce deflected media attention away from the controversy over Rivera-Soto’s unwillingness to participate in State Supreme Court decisions so long as a temporary justice is sitting on the court. The NJEA was really let off the hook by DeCroce’s remarks as the main stream media apparently completely missed the explosive videosreleased by citizen journalist James O’Keefe that expose union leaders promising to protect teachers who engage in sexual behavior with students.

The gift that DeCroce gave the Democrats may well keep giving throughout 2011 when the entire legislature will be on the November ballot.

If the Legislative Redistricting Commission draws an equitable map New Jersey should have the first competitive legislative elections in 12 years. For most of the last decade New Jersey cast more Republican votes than Democratic votes for legislators, yet Democrats have dominated the Senate and the Assembly due to gerrymandering of the districts. A new district map is due this coming winter.

If the coming election appears to be competitive and if DeCroce is effectively running for Assembly Speaker, count on the New Jersey Democratic machine running against DeCroce in much the same way the GOP ran against Nancy Pelosi in the recent national election.