Senator Sean Kean could have a bigger problem than Dan Jacobson in his quest for renomination to the State Senate.
According to a report on Politickernj the proposed legislative map favored by the Democrats on the redistricting commission puts Kean of Wall Township in the same district as Senator Robert Singer of Lakewood.
Without knowing the composition of the entire proposed district assessing each senator’s prospects in a head to head primary would be purely speculative. However Singer would start with a decided advantage based upon the size of the two senators’ home towns. Lakewood has 12,636 registered Republicans. 3813 Lakewood Republicans voted in the 2009 primary and 873 voted in the 2007 primary. Wall has 6,171 Republicans. 2507 voted in the 2009 primary, 457 in 2007.
Neither Kean nor Singer are favorites of Governor Christie. Kean was uninvited from Christie’s Monmouth County press conference after the December blizzard. Until recently, Singer was a “double dipper,” serving both in the Senate and on the Lakewood Township Committee.
As the horse trading escalates in New Brunswick through Sunday, trading Kean or Singer for a more competive district elsewhere in the state, perhaps moving Atlantic City into an Ocean County dominated district, thereby putting Senator Jim Whelan’s Democratic seat at risk could be considered a good trade by the Christie loyalists on the commission.
Politickernj and The Star Ledger have both reported that the final map will be adopted on Sunday at noon.
Bayshore Tea Party Group to Lead Demonstration to End Partisan Gerrymandering
Together with groups and voters from around the State, BTPG will gather in New Brunswick
Middletown, NJ – As reports leak out about the usual “Soprano State” dealings in New Brunswick- incumbents attempting to persuade the Apportionment Commission to protect their jobs and “their” districts-the Bayshore Tea Party Group together with other concerned groups and voters from around the State will gather at Monument Park in New Brunswick to demand an end to partisan Gerrymandering in New Jersey
Where: Monument Square
317 George St.
New Brunswick, NJ
When: 7 PM, Wednesday March 30, 2011
Since having released a map of unimpeachable Constitutionality on March 25, 2011-one wholly devoid of illicit considerations such as the protection of incumbent legislators-“The People’s Map” has received widespread and bipartisan praise from scholars such as Monmouth University’s Patrick Murray as well as from individual Republicans, Democrats and unaffiliated voters. The support from such disparate political viewpoints represents a statewide disgust with the practice of politicians selecting their voters rather than voters electing their representatives.
That practice is Gerrymandering and it must stop.
Members of the Bayshore Tea Party Group and other concerned citizens will hold a constant demonstration from tonight at 7PM until the Commission votes on the map that will bind New Jersey for the next 10 years.
All groups and individuals concerned with the odious process of Gerrymandering and with the intentional dilution of their vote on the altar of protecting incumbent politicians are invited and encouraged to attend.
It’s time the voters of New Jersey stood up and demanded an end to partisan Gerrymandering. That time is now.
Please visit our website at www.bayshoreteaparty.org for information on how you can become involved with the effort to restore American Exceptionalism and fix our broken government.
The Bayshore Tea Party Group Headquarters is located at 275 Rt. 35N in Middletown, NJ. Please contact [email protected] or call 732-842-6652 for more information.
Former Assemblyman and triCityNews publisher Dan Jacobson has switched his party affiliation to Republican. Jacobson is preparing to challenge Senator Sean Kean in the Republican primary should he and Kean reside in the same district when the new map is introduced.
Monmouth County GOP Vice Chair Diane Gooch, while not commenting on the prospect of Jacobson challenging Kean, said she was thrilled that Jacobson has joined the GOP. “I always knew he was a closet Republican,” said Gooch, “I’m thrilled that he has finally had his epiphany and joined the right side.”
Jacobson has frequently espoused his affection for Gooch in his paper. Diane was genuinely surprised by the news of Dan’s conversion when informed of it by MMM. She had nothing to do with it.
The stakes are apparently very high as the Legislative Reapportionment Commission works almost around the clock this week to settle on a map that could determine the partisan control of the New Jersey State Legislature for the next 10 years.
The 5 Democrats and 5 Republicans on the commission are working to convince the 11th “Independent” member or the commission, Dr. Alan Rosenthal, PhD of Rutgers to choose their proposed map. Rosenthal is said to be trying to either forge a compromise map or will choose one. Politickernj is reporting that Rosenthal is using the Democratic map as his foundation.
But who are the stakes high for?
Ultimately the stakes are high for all New Jersey residents, as what is decided this week will inevitably impact the quality of all of our lives over the next decade. But are most New Jersey residents even paying attention?
Are the commissioners in New Brunswick working so hard this week for the good of the people of the State, or are they fighting for power, control and the money that comes along with it. Certainly there are commissioners that have pure motives. I’d like to think that they are Republicans. Surely my Democratic readers hope the same of their side.
The Bayshore Tea Party Group has proposed a map that meets all the requirements set out in the Constitution. Turns out that, as a side benefit that proposed map also increases the competitiveness of the districts, and likely would increase minority representation, according to Monmouth University pollster Patrick Murray’s analysis of the map.
So why are they working so hard in New Brunswick? Why can’t both sides and Rosenthal just embrace the BTPG’s Constitutional “People’s Map?”
It turns out that there are “principles” not found in the State or U.S Constitutions driving the efforts. Perhaps I should say principals rather than principles. The principle principals are incumbents. The districts belong to them. The office’s they hold are theirs, not the people’s. That’s how it is in practice.
Even Rosenthal buys into incumbent protection. He puts it in noble sounding academic jargon, espousing the “continuity of representation” and the value of crafting a map that is “minimally disruptive.”
Continuous for who? Minimally disruptive to who? Rosenthal’s rhetoric and scholarly writings make it sound as if “continuity of representation” and “minimal disruption” are of value to the electorate. But are they?
It seems to me that most people are oblivious to what legislative districts they live in and relatively few know who their representatives are.
I don’t have empiracle data to back that hunch up, so I called Patrick Murray. He said that he is unaware of recent polling data of residents awareness of their districts or their legislators, but that he shares my hunch.
So I took to the streets. Main Street in Belford actually, to find some data. This is what I found:
Watch the video. Some of it is pretty funny. While not as scientific as one of Murray’s polls, I doubt the results would change with a larger statistical sample and with interviews throughout the state. Decades of miserably low turnout in legislative elections are statistically significant enough to conclude that most people are not paying attention to the legislature, and don’t know who their legislators are.
Maybe a Constitutional, non-gerrymandered map would change that. Maybe people would pay attention and vote if their vote mattered.
Sure, I feel for my friends in the legislature who would be maximally disrupted by the adoption of the BTPG’s map. But the offices they hold and the districts they represent don’t belong to them.
There won’t be real change in Trenton, the city won’t be turned upside down, unless there is a legislative map adopted that does not take into account the residency of incumbents.
The Republicans on the commission should embrace the BTPG’s map and invite Rosenthal to join them.
State Sen. Shirley Turner’s recent proposal to hit the state’s top taxpayers with a new “millionaires tax” is dangerous nonsense straight out of the soak-the-rich economic playbook. “It’s really about fairness,” said Turner (D-Mercer). “This governor has coddled the wealthy, but they need to pay their fair share.”
Leaving aside the fundamental question of why her proposed 10.75 percent top tax rate is the “fair” level, there is a more glaring problem with Turner’s proposal: It will make fiscal problems in New Jersey far worse.
New Jersey is in a deep financial hole because our politicians have spent money without ever evaluating whether the funding source is competitive and sustainable. The resulting debate about how to resolve these structural imbalances has become a spirited fight, as it deserves to be.
But regardless of one’s philosophical leanings or party affiliation, we should all be able to agree on one thing: We must do everything possible to encourage work and investment in New Jersey in order to fuel the economic furnace that generates government’s desperately needed tax revenues.
Politicians love the notion that they can merely increase your tax rate and generate a proportionally equivalent increase in tax revenues. But this is not the way the world really works.
Taxes change behavior. Drivers will cross state lines to save on gasoline tax. Taxpayers move to Florida to save on their income tax. When a special tax on millionaires a few years ago in Maryland failed to deliver its expected revenue boost, Democratic Gov. Martin O’Malley decided against bringing it back, focusing instead on spending cuts to balance his state’s budget.
Closer to home, New York state enacted a surtax on its top earners in 2009 as an emergency measure to help manage through the recession. Today, despite a recovering economy, New York’s underlying fiscal problems are worse than ever.
Recognizing that tax surcharges don’t solve problems, only prolong them, Gov. Andrew Cuomo has decided against extending the surtax.
New Jersey, which has an identical tax rate to New York’s on its top incomes, will have a top rate that is 57 percent higher than our neighbor in 2012 if Turner has her way.
The lesson across states wrestling with revenue shortfalls is clear: Raising taxes is no panacea because wealth is mobile.
New Jersey’s residents are the most highly taxed in the nation, and employers are steering clear of the state as a result. New Jersey lost more than 10,000 jobs per month in 2009, and job erosion continued into 2010 despite an economic recovery that added 1 million jobs nationally.
New Jersey currently generates a startling 41 percent of its income tax receipts from the top 1 percent of its taxpayers, a precarious reliance that the rating agency Standard & Poor’s said could contribute to “revenue volatility,” as it downgraded the state’s credit rating.
Turner needs to confront the hard truth: There is a limit to how much businesses and high-income residents can be taxed before they simply move away, taking our best hope for new investment, jobs and economic growth with them.
Turner says let the voters decide on the millionaires tax, punting tax policy to a ballot referendum. She might be surprised by the result.
Last November, one state did put a referendum on its ballot to implement a special tax of 9 percent on incomes greater than $500,000. It happened in Washington state, one of eight states with no income tax at all. That state has also been a relative stalwart economically. Washington voters rejected the special tax by a nearly 2-to-1 margin.
As a result of the recent U.S. Census, Washington will gain a seat in the House of Representatives, owing to its large population growth over the past decade, while New Jersey will lose a seat after a population gain below the national average.
Citizens vote with their pocketbooks and also with their feet.
When will New Jersey politicians learn that lesson?
Scott Sipprelle is president of the Lincoln Club of New Jersey and was the 2010 Republican candidate for Congress in the state’s 12th Congressional District
Former Councilwoman Grace Cangemi and Joseph Mizzi announced today that they would be seeking the Republican nomination for Red Bank Borough Council in the upcoming municipal election.
Cangemi, who served on council in 2007 and 2008 said she looked forward to getting back into the fray.
“Unfortunately, many of the same issues which I’ve been talking about since 2008 are still issues which need to be addressed,” said Cangemi. “Tough decisions need to be made and they need to be made in an environment that is open and transparent. This council doesn’t seem to recognize that affordability is the most important issue that residents and businesses face, maybe because their one party control has insulated them from the people who need them to take serious action. We need a borough government that is both transparent and responsive. The current council fails on both counts.”
Mizzi, a finance professional and part time economics professor, agreed and said the council needed some different voices.
“Unfortunately, when you have one party rule for so long, a kind of groupthink sets in and no dissenting views are considered,” said Mizzi. “I thought when Grace was on council she brought a different perspective that was refreshing and that’s what we’d both like to do again; challenge old assumptions and see if there isn’t a better way of doing things.”
Revised Map Makes Minor Substantive and Cosmetic Changes
Middletown, NJ – The Bayshore Tea Party Group issued a revised version of “The People’s Map” to the Apportionment Commission. The changes are as follows:
· Moves Egg Harbor Township, Weymouth and Estell Manor from District 2 to District 1;
· Moves Atlantic City, Brigantine and Absecon from District 1 to District 2;
· Makes cosmetic corrections to several inadvertently miscolored municipalities that do not affect the population outcomes of any other District.
In response to inquiries received following the release of “The People’s Map”, the Bayshore Tea Party Group Redistricting Committee would like to clarify some questions the public may have with the creation of our map:
“The People’s Map” was created entirely by hand and without the assistance of any computer program, such as the program in use by the Apportionment Commission and political parties;
“The People’s Map” was drawn using public census data obtained via the internet, pencils and a calculator;
No funding or other outside support from any person or organization was provided for the creation of “The People’s Map”. The aforementioned pencils, paper and calculators were provided by the Bayshore Tea Party Group, which is funded entirely through the generous donations of our members and the public.
The Bayshore Tea Party Group would like to acknowledge and thank Monmouth University’s Patrick Murray for the notes he provided upon his review of our map.
BTPG would also like to publicly acknowledge Jim Meyer of Gateway Press in Atlantic Highlands, NJ for his hard work in preparing “The People’s Map.”
Please visit our website at www.bayshoreteaparty.org for information on how you can become involved with the effort to restore American Exceptionalism and fix our broken government.
The Bayshore Tea Party Group Headquarters is located at 275 Rt. 35N in Fairview, NJ. Please contact [email protected] or call 732-804-3733 for more information.
Governor Chris Christie has spent the day with Republican members of the of the Redistricting Commission, according to a report published on Politickernj.
The commission, 5 Democrats, 5 Republicans and 11th member Dr. Alan Rosenthan of Rutgers have been holed upped at the Heldrich Hotel in News Brunswick today. Democrats and Republicans have been meeting with Rosenthal separately throughout the day, making their respective cases for the new legislative map’s configuration.
First the candidate pushed by the party bosses didn’t win. Of course I am not sure which candidate was being pushed by the party bosses because different candidates where pushed by different bosses. Actually the lesson is, there are no more “Bosses”. The process was fair and relatively democratic without some of the histrionics that took place when the process of candidate selection was first opened up. Yes the chairman had a candidate he preferred as did certain elected officials. Guess what. They are allowed to voice an opinion. Just because they do does not mean their candidate is being pushed down our throat. So there you have it. All you conspiracy theorists can now go home. Please.
Second we learned some people are better at building coalitions then other people.
In the last ten years Jim has only failed to back the winner once. That was John Curley in his second run. Here is a guy who isn’t even a municipal chairman, holds no elected office, has no cushy government appointments yet he gets people nominated. Rich tried to get the nomination twice and failed. It was not until he got Gianell’s support that he got the nomination.
How does he do it? He appears to have the confidence of a lot of people and he is good at convincing people to back his candidate. He did this first as the architect of the once influential Two Rivers Chairman Group and more recently by working with like minded chairmen scattered about the County. He also is a tireless worker for “his Guy or Gal”.
It seems that if you want to get the Monmouth GOP’s backing Jim Gianell is the guy to go see.
Spring Lake Councilman Gary Rich won the Monmouth GOP nomination for Freeholder this morning.
The MC GOP selection committee comprised of municipal chairs, county and state elected officials and former elected officials selected Rich on a very close ballot.
Rich received 25 votes, followed by 23 votes for Manalapan Mayor Andrew Lucas and 22 votes for Wall Committeeman George Newberry. Howell Mayor Bob Walsh withdrew from the race prior to polling. Walsh still received one vote.
By Art Gallagher