Middletown– Senator Joe Kyrillos, co-prime sponsor of the original legislation establishing New Jersey’s landmark Environmental Infrastructure Trust (EIT), is pleased to announce that special financing for the cleanup of Middletown’s Shadow Lake has been signed into law by Governor Christie this afternoon:
“The Environmental Infrastructure trust was created to help communities finance costly remediation projects just like Shadow Lake in order to improve and preserve our state’s natural treasures,” said Kyrillos. “The remediation of Shadow Lake is a project has been in the making for more than a decade. Thanks to the bill signed today authorizing the latest round of EIT financing, the residents in and around Shadow Lake and Middletown will secure the necessary resources to begin its cleanup. Middletown Township will use $2.7 million in low-interest loans to dredge the lake and deposit the spoil in a licensed facility approved by the DEP. I look forward to working together to ensure that this project is completed.”
A new PPP poll shows that a clear majority of New Jersey voters oppose gay marriage.
“Hang on a minute,” you say. “All the media reports I saw on that poll say that New Jersey supports gay marriage. Are you off your rocker, Murray?”
No, I’m not. I just read the entire press release sent out by the pollster. I found information in the very first paragraph that could lead a reasonable person – or at least an astute reporter – to conclude that this poll shows that most New Jerseyans do not support the recognition of gay marriage.
Here’s why. The poll asked two questions. The first question asked simply if “same-sex marriage should be legal or illegal?” And being a basically fair-minded lot, more New Jersey poll participants sided with making it legal by a not overly wide 47% to 42% margin.
However, the pollster followed that with a different question – one more reflective of the reality that exists in New Jersey right now. If the choice was between gay marriage, civil unions and no recognition at all, the public evenly splits between gay marriage (41%) and civil unions (40%).
If you add the group who choose civil unions to the 17% of those polled who oppose any kind of legal standing for same sex couples, you arrive at a sizable 57% who oppose gay marriage when civil unions are an option, as they are in New Jersey.
To its credit, the polling firm, Public Policy Polling, not only asked both questions butreported the results for both in the first paragraph of their press release. However, they presented this information under a headline claiming there is unequivocal public support for gay marriage in New Jersey. And they semantically underplayed the apparent contradiction in the two questions’ results.
Hmmm, I wonder if this Democratic polling firm may have an agenda? Fair enough. They did clearly show all the results of their poll, after all.
The real problem is that the media blithely went along with the storyline fed to them by the polling firm – even when contradictory evidence was put right in front of their eyes. See here, here (with a blatantly inaccurate headline claiming “even Republicans support same-sex marriage”), here (which bizarrely interprets 41% as a “majority” – no wonder we’re falling behind the rest of the world in math), and here.[Note that the text of at least one of these online articles – although not the headline – has been modified after I contacted reporters about this.]
Usually when a poll has contradictory information or the pollster has an agenda, a critical observer really has to do some work to uncover the red flags. That means reading deeply into the background information that a pollster is willing to provide, as one New Jersey columnist did recently (see the last two paragraphs). Many times you don’t even get this information to review (in which case, don’t report the poll at all!)
For this poll on gay marriage, though, the conflicting information was presented with a flashing neon sign. Yet, no reporter bothered to say, “How would I report these results if all I had was the question results without the pollster’s interpretation?” If they had, I bet the headlines would have been less clear-cut about where the public stands on this issue.
And that would have reflected the reality that public opinion on gay marriage is not clear-cut. As I wrote over a year ago, nearly a decade of polling on this subject in New Jersey and elsewhere shows that opinion on this issue is malleable. The current poll underscores this fact.
When Democrats in the poll were asked the up or down marriage question, 64% supported it. And when they were presented with the civil union option, a full 59% stood by their original position. Republicans were similarly steadfast – only 23% supported same sex marriage in the limited option question and a similar 20% said the same when civil unions were added to the equation (although it’s worth noting that most Republicans do in fact support civil unions).
Independents, on the other hand, were swayed by the context of the question. On the straight up or down marriage question they divided 46% for to 36% against. But when civil unions were given as an option, support for same sex marriage declined by a sizable 13 points to just 33%.
Bottom line: This poll provides clear evidence of the ‘softness” in public opinion on gay marriage in New Jersey. About 4-in-10 are solidly for it and 4-in-10 are solidly against it, but the remainder are liable to change their opinion. And with this changeable group rests the majority. Therefore, as the public debate on this issue resumes, public opinion will continue to shift.
We had two outstanding guests of the LaRossa and Gallagher: Real Jersey Guys On the Radio Show this week. If you missed it or want to listen again, here's a recording of the show:
During the first half hour Assemblywoman Amy Handlin (R-13)discussed the good work she is doing to bring good government to New Jersey. Handlin shared her anti-corruption legislation, her new legislation to prevent fraud and abuse in the unemployment insurance system, and the Right to Work legislation she is co-sponsoring with Assemblyman Declan O'Scanlon.
We ran out of time before Handlin could get into detail about the devastating impact ObamaCare will have on New Jersey residents. Handlin is one of the few people who has actually read the entire ObamaCare bill and understands the intrusive nature of the legislation we will experience if it is not repealed. We will have Handlinback to get into ObamaCare.
I have heard many Republicans gripe about Patrick Murray's work over the last year or so. Governor Christie once said on NJ 101.5's Ask the Governor that Murray "should go back to polling school" over a poll in which Murray reported the opinions of New Jersey residents rather than just registered voters.
Yet increasingly over the last several months Murray, the Director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute, is the go to guy for local and national media outlets looking for expert commentary about New Jersey.
Murray characterises himself as "an independent observer reading the tea leaves" of the New Jersey electorate.
New Jersey Republicans are going to like what Murray sees in the tea(not necessarily tea party)leaves.
Regarding President Obama, when asked if Obama is becoming another Jimmy Carter, Murray said, "that's exactly what it looks like. The guy takes and backseat and doesn't inject himself as a leader." "He doesn't understand that the presidency is about the symbolic leadership of the country. The public doesn't get that impression of President Obama."
Murray said that Senator Robert Menendez's reelection chances are tied to Obama's coat tails. While recent polls show Obama OK in New Jersey, none have been taken since the recent debt/deficit deal in Washington and that it is a real possibility that Obama could lose New Jersey next year. "There is potential for a whole new ball game" in New Jersey. "Obama is not winning people over."
Murray said that Frank Pallone and Rush Holt vote in Congress "however they want to" without regard to the ideological preferences of their constituents because they have been completely protected by the way their districts are drawn. That may change with redistricting.
Murray had good things to say about Governor Christie too.
Government entities and private enterprises that borrowed to install solar panels expecting the excess energy the panels produce to cover the debt service are in for a rude awakening. An oversupply of solar energy in New Jersey has lead to a 50% reduction in the price of Solar Renewable Energy Credits (SREC).
Rather than getting the “free” solar panels and free or cheap energy they were promised, taxpayers and businesses are faced with digging into other pockets to make the payments on their panels.
According to Michael Flett, founder of Flett Exchange, LLC, an energy exchange, brokerage and consulting firm located in Jersey City:
The Drop in prices is directly correlated to the potential of an oversupply of SRECs for the 2012 Energy year. There has just been too much solar installed too quickly compared to the mandates put on the electric producers. Electric Producers in New Jersey are required by law under the Renewable Portfolio Standard to purchase 442,000 SRECs from solar owners during the June 2011 to May 2012 time period (energy year 2012). There is currently almost enough solar installed to produce that amount of SRECs. The oversupply is coming from the rate that solar is being installed. In June of 2011 alone there was 40 Mw of solar installed in NJ. This was more than 10% of all the solar ever installed since the inception of the program in 2004. At this rate there may be more than a 100,000 oversupply of energy year 2012 SRECs.
John Burry of TheCountyWatchers, a Union County watchdog blog, saw this problem and many other problems with the solar scam coming a year ago.
Middletown Mayor Tony Fiore says the township has mitigated this risk in their solar program:
Our proposal will not be to put any capital money towards the project. It will be a pure PPA (power purchase agreement) whereas, providers will bid to install and maintain the project on their own dime and will sell us the power back at a much reduced rate from what we pay. The SREC risk will be born by the PPA provider, not the township. This is a main reason why we decided to go down this route vs putting up money ourselves (aside from the fact we can’t spend what we don’t have!).
The couinty on the other hand is thinking about using MCIA money to help the PPA finance the project. They could see an impact.
Township Committeman Gerry Scharfenberger, a former mayor added:
I wish solar, biofuels, wind, plankton, goose crap, etc. all worked so we can let the Middle East self destruct and not have to worry about our energy supply. The fact is, it seems all of these alternative energies have to be subsidized up the wazoo to even have the appearance of being viable. In the meantime, we need cheap, efficient, reliable energy and we need it now if we have any hope of jumpstarting the economy and bringing the cost of government down
“Poop Baby Poop” could replace “Drill Baby Drill” as the mantra for energy independence advocates if a Houston, Texas company is successful converting 60,000 tons of Camden County sludge into a product that replaces coal as a fuel source.
Synagro Technologies Inc was awarded a $28 million grant along with the Camden County Municipal Utilities Authority from the Department of Community Affairs to begin turning the poop into power, according to NJSpotlight.
Robert Montenegro, Synagro’s Camden project manager, says poop burns cleaner that coal. The poop is dried and converted to renewable fuel to create energy and power manufacturing operations. The 60,000 tons of poop will replace 6,000 tons of coal and reduce carbon emissions by 17,000 tons. I don’t understand that math. I guess I don’t know shit.
Since Governor Christie took office, The Star Ledger’s Editorial Page Editor Tom Moran has been constantly critical of Christie’s style. It was Moran’s question about the Governor’s “confrontational tone” at a May 2010 press conference that lead to a “honest and refreshing” Christie becoming a YouTube phenomena and now a national media star.
Now that the left is unhappy with President Obama it is safe to criticize him without being called a racists.
Obama came into office with a promise of unifying the country. He’s done it. The extreme left, the extreme right and the mushy middle agree that Obama is not a leader and not up to the job of President of the United States.
The president gave in and gave in, and he has lost whatever good will the great middle had for his attempt to be the rational one in the argument. Americans cannot respect a president who runs up the white flag of surrender.
And this obscene sausage-making is only the latest in a long line of appeasements: on health care, on Guantanamo Bay, on civilian trials for terror suspects.
We teach our children the fine art of compromise, but if you compromise away your values, you’ve lost something you cannot get back by barter.
We don’t want to elect some “philosopher-king” out of Plato. We want a leader with fire in his belly, who at least puts up an honest struggle based on core principles, who, in the words of Theodore Roosevelt, “spends himself in a worthy cause … and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
So many thought that Barack Obama might be just that man. It looks as if we were wrong.
Not surprisingly, the leftist media is assailing the Tea Party for exhibiting the very characteristics they say Obama is lacking.
APP.com says Obama “has revealed himselfto be a man unwilling to fight for the principles in which he has said he believed.” Yet the principled Tea Party members of congress are “80 unreasoning Tea Party members of the House of Representatives and their right-wing echo chamber on talk radio and cable TV?
NY Times Columnist Maureen Dowd said:
Consider what the towel-snapping Tea Party crazies have already accomplished. They’ve changed the entire discussion. They’ve neutralized the White House. They’ve whipped their leadership into submission. They’ve taken taxes and revenues off the table. They’ve withered the stock and bond markets. They’ve made journalists speak to them as though they’re John Calhoun and Alexander Hamilton.
Indeed, the accomplishments of the Tea Party members of congress are impressive. They have changed the discourse. A year ago the Obama, Reid, Pelosi triumvirate were expanding the federal government with impunity. Today there is a new direction. The job or reining government is hardly done. The deficit/debt deal is far from perfect, but it is a huge accomplishment.
For the most part the Tea Party members of congress and other Republicans who voted no on the debt ceiling deal have been gracious in victory. While asserting their principles and not backing down on the need for spending cuts and a balanced budget amendment, the have praised the leadership of Speaker John Boehner.
Grass roots Tea Party activists need to develop such grace without abandoning their principles.
The Tea Party has withstood vicious media attacks since its emergence. They were able to withstand the attacks of racism and lunacy with grace and cogent arguments.
Whether the Tea Party can withstand the coming attacks remains to be seen. The behavior and rhetoric of many grassroots activists and leaders is feeding into the left’s new attacks of crazy and unreasonable. Many Tea Party activists are coming off as sore winners. They are coming off as crazy and unreasonable.
Their anger at Republicans is misdirected. Their expressed disappointment with recent heroes, like Allen West who voted with the majority yesterday, is misguided.
The leftist media cannot thwart the Tea Party movement on its own. However, the movement can be killed off if the Tea Party unwittingly cooperates, which it is in danger of doing.
Can the Tea Party survive victory? Time will tell if the two year old unstructured grassroots movement can develop political maturity. Time will tell if it has what it takes for the long haul of incremental victories
Governor Chris Christie: Well I think we have to look at the specifics of it, Terry, as to whether it’s going to be a good deal for the states or not. Here’s what I’m happy about. They finally did something. I mean, I don’t know, I’m like, I think most citizens in this country are, sitting around saying, ‘What the hell are they doing down there?’ And you know, they don’t talk to each other, they talk at each other, they’re worried more about talking to the cable TV stations than they are about talking to their colleague sitting to their right or to their left. President seemed to be absent for most of this, I mean if we ever did that in New Jersey we’d be run out of town on a rail. You look at what we’ve done in the first 18 months in New Jersey with divided government. You know, divided government is a challenge, but it’s not impossible. With divided government, we’ve gotten two budgets that have cut significant money from the expenditures it’s saved New Jersey. We’ve gotten a 2 percent property tax cap, we’ve reformed the interest arbitration system to keep property taxes down, we have put forward $132 billion dollars in savings for taxpayers over the next 30 years by reforming the pension and public health benefit system, to protect the pensions of those people who are collecting them and also to try to help to save the taxpayers. All this stuff has been done in divided government, because Senator Sweeney, Speaker Oliver, Senator Kean, Assemblyman DeCroce and I talk to each other, not at each other. So I’ll look at what the specifics are Terry when they come out, I think the members of Congress are still trying to get their arms around the specifics of the deal, and I’ll certainly comment on that when I get a better handle on it from the folks who look at this stuff for me in Washington. But I will say that I join, I’m sure hundreds of millions of Americans, to say I am relieved that the Congress and the President have finally gotten around to doing their jobs not a moment too soon, and I wish they would look more to the states for an example of how you can get this done. And whether it’s me in New Jersey with divided government, or that it’s Governor Cuomo across the river in New York with divided government, we’re both setting an example. So it’s not a Republican or Democratic issue. It’s a leadership issue. And if you understand that, you know, your job is to lead and get things done, and not just to posture and pose in front of these cameras, then you actually get your job done, so I’m relieved that the President and Congress finally got to that this weekend, but I’m sure that Governor Cuomo and I would be happy to run a seminar for them anytime, to try to let them know how to get things done.
Assemblywoman Amy Handlin (R-13) will be the first guest tomorrow at 5PM on the LaRossa And Gallagher: Real Jersey Guys On The Radio Show on WIFIAM1460 on your radio dial and here on the Internet.
Handlin and her 13th district Assembly running mate Declan O’Scanlon are sponsors of the New Jersey “Right to Work Act” which prohibits payroll deductions for union dues and makes union membership voluntary.
Imagine getting your dream job that pays well, offers generous benefits and is located a few miles from your home.
But there’s a condition: You must pay Harold Camping $75 every month to help spread the word about his next Doomsday prediction.
That’s probably not a problem for those who believed Judgment Day was May 21 and are now convinced it’s coming Oct. 21, but most would object to an employer telling us what we should believe and how we should spend our money.
In America, people are free to believe whatever they want and support their beliefs however they choose.
In New Jersey, and many other states, however, workers are forced to join unions and fund their political priorities, regardless of their wishes.
I support workers’ right to organize, but that should be a personal choice. Those who agree withtheir union representatives have every right to join, but others should have the freedom to work without subsidizing and endorsing a group they disagree with.
Just last week Handlin announced that she is drafting legislation to prohibit voluntary retirees who are collecting a pension from simultaneously collecting unemployment benefits.
Tune in for what promises to be an informative half hour. Those who have questioned Handlin’s conservative ethos should especially call in and learn something.
Call in with questions and comments to 609-447-0237.
Patrick Murray, the founding director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute will be our guest for the second half hour of the show. Murray’s media profile has risen in recent months as increasingly he has become a “go to” expert for both local and national new outlets for commentary on New Jersey government and politics. We are pleased to have him on the show.
When Murray asked what I want to talk about I said, “whatever is current. We can talk about how the debt ceiling dealings in Washington will impact New Jersey politics, we can talk about Congressional Redistricting, and the upcoming legislative races.” We’re not limited to those topics, and as always, your calls are welcome and encouraged.
Listen live between 5PM and 6PM here and call in to 609-447-0237.
If you miss the show, a recording will be posted here on MMM, hopefully by 9PM.
The primary election for the Republican nomination for United States Senate in 2012 now appears to be a contest between two members of the New Jersey State Senate, Joe Kyrillos of Monmouth County and Mike Doherty of Warren County. Kyrillos served in the State Assembly from 1988 until 1991 and in the state senate since then. Doherty served in the State Assembly from 2002 until 2009 and in the State Senate from 2009 until the present.The contest has been depicted in the media and in some political quarters as a race between a conservative Doherty and a moderate Kyrillos. This is, however, a most inaccurate portrayal.
Joe Kyrillos is a solid Reaganite conservative. By contrast, Mike Doherty is a Ron Paul conservative. Doherty supported Ron Paul for President in the 2008 election.
Senator Doherty has emphasized as his defining conservative issue his Fair School Funding plan, which he has introduced in the State Senate in the form of a bill. Under this legislation, each school district would receive state aid based upon a per pupil amount, multiplied by the number of its students.
The Doherty plan would clearly be held to be unconstitutional by the New Jersey Supreme Court. Under its Abbott v. Burke line of cases, the court has shifted a disproportionate amount of state aid from suburban districts to the state urban “special needs” districts. Senator Doherty’s legislation is effective in making a point, but ineffective in making change.
By contrast, in 1992, Senator Kyrillos proposed a constitutional amendment which would have been far more effective in preserving suburban state school aid. This measure would have effectively superseded Abbott v. Burke and limited the jurisdiction of the New Jersey Supreme Court to intervene in state school funding matters.
Specifically, the Kyrillos amendment would have prohibited the New Jersey Supreme Court from requiring that any school district be funded in an amount in excess of 120 percent of the state per pupil average. The amendment was considered at a joint Assembly-Senate public hearing in July, 1992.
The liberal media in New Jersey harshly criticized the Kyrillos amendment as having an anti-minority impact. At the public hearing, urban school officials and activists denounced the amendment as racist. In the face of these attacks, the amendment failed to get the necessary support of 24 Senators and 48 Assembly members for placement on the November, 1992 ballot.
In sponsoring and advocating this amendment however, Joe Kyrillos demonstrated both his judicial conservatism and political courage. In the election of that same year of 1992, Kyrillos ran against incumbent Frank Pallone for the U.S. House of Representatives. Yet he still sponsored the amendment, refusing to sacrifice his judicial conservatism as an expediency of the election.
The judicial conservatism of Joe Kyrillos was also much in evidence on November 14, 2006. On that day, he was the only member of the State Senate to vote against granting tenure to New Jersey Supreme Court Justice Jaynee LaVecchia.
Earlier in 2011, Justice LaVecchia issued the court opinion requiring the state to give the urban 31 districts an additional $500 million. In assessing the Kyrillos vote on Justice LaVecchia’s tenure back in 2006, one must understand that he would oppose the granting of tenure to any justice he perceived to be legislating from the bench rather than strictly interpreting the law.
Joe Kyrillos has a connection to the presidency of Ronald Reagan deeper than that of any other current elected official in New Jersey. He began his career as a special assistant to the then Secretary of the Interior Don Hodel during the second term of the Reagan administration.
After the completion of the Reagan administration, Hodel later served as president of the Christian Coalition from 1997 until 1999 and as president of Focus on the Family from 2003 until 2005. The social conservatism of his mentor, Don Hodel influenced Joe Kyrillos as well. It was much in evidence during the second term of the Whitman administration, when Kyrillos sponsored a constitutional amendment banning all third trimester abortions.
The tax reduction and pro-business ideology of Ronald Reagan has constituted the core of the conservative, free market philosophy of Senator Joe Kyrillos. He was a leading advocate of the Whitman income tax cuts. Most significantly, Kyrillos made history by his authorship and sponsorship of the New Jersey Business Employment Incentive Program, which gives rebates to companies who create a substantial number of new jobs.
Kyrillos also demonstrates his appreciation of the Reagan style by his effectiveness in securing the passage of legislation. While he is loyal to his conservative principles, he works well with senators of different political parties and divergent ideologies. Joe Kyrillos has demonstrated the ability to not only talk conservative change, but make it as well.
In writing this column, I do not mean to imply in any way that Mike Doherty is not a conservative. I simply want to correct any misperceptions about Joe Kyrillos. Far from being a moderate, he is the ultimate Reaganite conservative.
I must make a full disclosure, however. Joe Kyrillos is a good friend of mine. That is something of which I am most proud.
Alan J. Steinberg served as Regional Administrator of Region 2 EPA during the administration of former President George W. Bush. Region 2 EPA consists of the states of New York and New Jersey, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and eight federally recognized Indian nations. Under former New Jersey Governor Christie Whitman, he served as Executive Director of the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission. He currently serves on the political science faculty of Monmouth University.
Assemblywoman Amy Handlin (R-13) will be the first guest tomorrow at 5PM on the LaRossa And Gallagher: Real Jersey Guys On The Radio Show on 
Patrick Murray