Governor Chris Christie nominated Monmouth County Republican Chairman Joe Oxley to the Superior Court this afternoon.
Oxley, who will complete his second term as Monmouth GOP Chair upon the election of his successor on June, 12, is a graduate of the University of Maryland and Delaware Law School. He was elected Monmouth County Sheriff in 1995 after defeating William Lanzaro in the GOP primary and served as Sheriff until 2007. He is a partner in the Scarinci Hollenbeck law firm and an adjunct professor at Monmouth University.
Oxley was elected Chairman by acclamation in June of 2008. After narrowly losing control of the Monmouth County Freeholder Board in the Obama election of 08, Oxley brought stability and three straight victorious elections to a previously divided party. He will leave his successor with a 5-0 Freeholder Board and an entirely Republican legislative delegation.
Oxley’s nomination has been referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee for a confirmation hearing.
Former Senate President John Bennett and State Committeewoman Christine Hanlon are running to replace Oxley as Monmouth GOP Chair.
Legislation that would give the Division of Youth and Family Services broad powers to prevent families from homeschooling their children is being fast tracked through the State Assembly.
The bill, A2881, was filed last Thursday and is scheduled for a hearing before the Assembly Women and Children Committee this morning. The Committee Chair, Assemblywoman Pamela Lampitt is sponsor of the bill.
Scott Woodruff, Senior Counsel of the Home School Legal Defense Association, says the legislation goes too far. He has asked that Lampitt postpone the hearing so that homeschool representatives can meet with her to discuss whether a narrow, more targeted bill can be drafted that would address legitimate needs without hampering parents homeschool program is not even in question. Lampitt has not responded.
Woodruff says that the bill gives DYFS “blank check power to prohibit homeschooling for any reason or no reason at all.”
DYFS has a history of making poor decisions about children in their
care. They should not be given blank-check authority to make
educational decisions about home schooled children.
Consider these situations which have nothing to do with education but
which might lead to a child coming under DYFS supervision:
–a child gets in a fight at the local park, and a judge gives DYFS
supervision of the child;
–a baby gets sick and a judge decides the family waited too long to
go to the emergency room, and places all the family’s other kids under
DYFS supervision;
–a family is remodelling and the house is so messy that a judge gives
DYFS suervision of the kids;
–a family with 6 biological children adopts a 10-year old orphan from
Russia who starts makes up bizarre stories about maltreatment, and a
judge gives DYFS supervision over all kids as a result.
This bill is probably unnecessary. If a judge ever actually takes
jurisdiction of a child, which usually happens in serious cases, the
judge probably already has the power to make decisions about the
child’s education.
This bill may make people afraid to accept services from DYFS.
The bill provides no definition of “care, custody or supervision,” so
we don’t even know for sure what situations would cause a family to
come under DYFS’ power to prohibit homeschooling. Nor does the bill
define “homeschool.” This could allow a judge power to define
homeschooling in a way that threatens the freedom of families.
The bill gives the Department of Education power to create regulations
to carry out the bill’s provisions. Regulations are created by the
will of bureacrats, not by a democratic process. Because of this, they
can be hostile to the rights of individuals.
The bill’s language starts by saying “notwithstanding any provision of
law to the contrary, …” This means that all other state laws must
give way to this new billl. Every other right you have under state law
will be below this bill.
The members of the Assembly Women and Children Committee are:
Chair:Pamela R. Lampitt (D) District 6 Voorhees 856.435.1247
A former Long Branch woman who appealed to Governor Chris Christie for help regarding unfair and illegal treatment by the Monmouth County Judge presiding over her divorce case says she has heard from the State Attorney General’s Criminal Division and the Governor’s office who have referred her case to the Advisory Committee on Judicial Conduct.
Rachel Alintoff, 36, told Christie during his town hall meeting in Garfield last week that Judge Paul X. Escandon stripped her of her parental rights of her 2 year old son, Hayden, without the legally required hearing, as punishment for her seeking an order of protection in New York, where she lives now, against her estranged husband Bryan who failed to dispose of a handgun as Escandon had ordered as part of a custody order.
Alintoff also told Christie that Escandon, after his ruling on her parental rights was overturned by the Appeals Court, denied her access to her clothing, money for legal fees and granted her only $1,100 per month in child support from her husband who earns, she says, over $500K per year on Wall Street.
Here’s a link to video of Alintoff speaking to Christie and the Governor’s response. The video will start with Christie recognising Alintoff. At the 43:58 mark Christie moves on to Peter, the young student who became famous for asking the Governor for a note to excuse him for missing school.
Here’s the text of Alintoff’s remarks and questions to Christie:
I am going through a divorce in Monmouth County in front of Judge Paul X. Escandon.
In October 2011, Judge Escandon stripped me of all my parental rights to my 2 year old son without the legally required hearing.
I had only supervised visitation. This was a punishment for an order of protection I was seeking in NYC (where I am currently living) when my husband failed to dispose of his handgun as per a court order. My son had to endure a month of barely seeing his mother until Judge Escandon was Summarily reversed by the Appelate Court for his illegal ruling.
Since then, Judge Escandon has gone on to make other illegal rulings against me such as denying me access to my clothing, granting no money for my legal fees and only issuing $1,100 in support a month to my son and me which puts us below the Federal Poverty Level. All while my husband makes on average over half a million dollars a year on Wall Street.
This is not an isolated incident. Judge Escandon has done similar things to other woman and has a habit of financiallly ruining women in his courtroom.
I have a 2-part question:
1) What will you do as Governor to ensure that Judges like Escandon follow the law or are taken off the bench?
2) Judge Escandon is the former law partner of Assemblyman Sean Kean whose main platform is reducing Alimony for women.
What will you do as Governor to make sure that Judges are kept from carrying out their own political agendas from the bench?
Alintoff, who first brought her situation to MMM’s attention as a comment in the post about the Garfield town hall meeting, says she’s heard from Jeanne Ashmore in the Governor’s Office and Detective Charles Crescenz in the Criminal Division of the Attorney General’s Office, both of whom told her the matter would be taken up by the Advisory Committee on Judicial Conduct. Neither Crescenz nor Ashmore would comment to MMM. John Tonelli, Executive Director of the ACJC also declined to comment.
Alintoff emailed every member of the State Legislature today to inform them of her situation. Her father, Merny Schwartz, Phd, wrote to Chief Justice Stuart Rabner about Escandon’s conduct last December. Schwartz maintains a blog on his daughter’s case before Escandon, JudgePaulEscandon.blog.com.
Politickernj writers Darryl Isherwood and Max Pizarro posted an in depth piece yesterday afternoon that exposes an incestuous web of influence driving planning, zoning and development approvals before the Middlesex County Freeholder Board and several municipal planning boards in the county.
State Senator Bob Smith of Piscataway is the leader of the PACs that fund the campaigns of the Freeholders and municipal officials who approve the applications. The applicants are donors to the PACs. Smith is the applicants’ attorney.
It’s all legal. And no one would know about it if not for Harold Kane of Monroe Township painstakingly examining thousands of pages of ELEC reports to find out where all the Middlesex Democratic money was coming from and the good journalists at Politickernj and The Star Ledger following the money.
Smith, the Senator working the system, and Peter Barnes, the Assemblyman and Middlesex County Democratic Chairman who’s candidates benefit from the system, know the solution to this “craziness.” Barnes said that “any impetus to close the hole lies with the legislature.” Smith said, “There is a solution to the craziness we have now and that is publicly financed elections – or complete transparency. “In New Jersey, we have nothing but chaos. The state needs one set standard across the state.”
Where is their legislation? Smith and Barnes are both powerful members of the legislature. They obviously know how the work the system. They know how to fix it.
Here’s a campaign finance system that would be transparent:
1) Remove all limits on campaign contributions.
2) Require that all candidates and campaigns disclose all contributions of any amount on a dedicated website within 24 hours of receipt.
3) Competing campaigns, good citizens like Kane, and good journalist will examine the donations and expose influence. Voters will decide if the influence is acceptable of not.
Correction: Peter Barnes, Jr, the Middlesex Democratic Chairman is no longer in the legislature. His son, Peter III is an Assemblyman.
Now there are two Barnes and a Smith who can advocate for legislation that creates complete transparency.
The New Jersey Senate Judiciary Committee rejected Phillip Kwon’s nomination to be an Associate Justice of the State Supreme Court.
The committee voted 7-6 against Governor Christie’s nominee. Democratic Senator Brian Stack of Hudson County joined five Republicans in voting for the nomination.
Michael Aron of NJTV said that this is the first time in history that the Judiciary Committee has not approved a governor’s nomination to the Supreme Court.
At issue for the Democrats voting against the nomination was Kwon’s family finances, his political affiliation and his work in the Christie administration’s Attorney General’s office.
The nomination of Chatham Mayor Bruce Harris was not heard today.
Republican members of the committee, called the Democrats’ rejection of Kwon a politically motivated “indefensible character assassination.” In a joint statement Senators Gerald Cardinale, Kevin O’Toole, Joe Kyrillos, Christopher Bateman and Michael J. Doherty said,
Today, Democratic Senators on the Judiciary Committee rejected an exceptionally well-qualified Supreme Court nominee for no good reason whatsoever. From the moment Mr. Kwon was nominated, the Majority engaged in a campaign of intensely personal character assassination centering around issues that were completely immaterial to his fitness to serve on the court.
The Majority’s entire line of questioning and basis for rejecting his nomination centered on events that had absolutely nothing to do with Phil Kwon.
In short, Phil Kwon was railroaded out of sheer partisan animosity toward the governor. Theirs was a rejection seeking a reason. Faced with a nominee whom there was no rational basis to reject, the Majority decided to create one based on the actions of others for which he bears no legal, ethical, or personal responsibility.
If the Majority thinks that its own political ends are what matters in this process, they are mistaken. The only thing that matters is the public’s right to Supreme Court justices that are well qualified, fair, and nominated by a Governor to whom the voters gave this awesome responsibility.
Their petty actions today are a disgrace to the legislature and the people we serve.
The New Jersey Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hold hearings on the nominations of Bruce Harris and Phillip Kwon for seats on the State Supreme Court this morning.
The hearings can be followed live on the Legislature’s website.
Assemblyman Gilbert Wilson, D-Camden, has sponsored legislation that would compel genetic parternity testing of all infants at birth, according to a report on NJ.com. The cost of the test would be born by the parents or the insurer.
While Wilson said the measure applies to mothers and fathers alike, “mostly this should be geared towards the father because with the mother, of course, there is no doubt.”
The problem is not limited to guests on angst-ridden television talk shows, said Wilson, a Democrat from Camden County who goes by the nickname Whip.
“I’ve heard different stories about fathers who are raising children and paying support for a child and come to find out years later that it wasn’t their child,” he said. “It’s a devastating thing to find out.”
Wilson said the bill would allow men who turn out not be a child’s father to seek reimbursement for support or other expenses they have incurred raising the child.
Our liberal friends at Blue Jersey called the bill “man-centered, not kid-centered. Shame.”
It seems to me that the legislation is truth centered but nanny state centric.
The bill doesn’t seem to have much of a chance of becoming law according to the NJ.com piece.
Wilson might have a shot of getting Republican support for the bill if it granted either parent named on a birth certificate the authority to order such a test at his/her own expense….if they don’t already have that right.
If you want to understand what rule by liberal judges looks like on the state level, you need only look at New Jersey, which is teetering on bankruptcy though it remains one of America’s wealthiest states. ~ Steven Malanga, writing in City Journal
If you want to understand how, despite being one of the wealthiest states in the country, New Jersey is teetering on the brink of fiscal disaster, read Steven Malanga’s The Court That Broke New Jersey.
If you want to know why no governor or state legislature can reduce New Jersey’s oppressive property taxes, read Steven Malanga’s The Court That Broke New Jersey.
Malanga traces the roots of New Jersey’s tyranical Supreme Court all the way back to Arthur Vanderbilt, the first Chief Justice under the 1947 state constitution. In his opinion in Winberry v. Salisbury, Vanderbilt layed the foundation for judicial tyrnany by ruling that the court, not the legislature, has the power to make rules for the state judiciary.
That ruling set New Jersey’s judiciary apart from the court systems in most other states—as well as from the federal judiciary, which ultimately derives its authority from Congress. Some critics have even argued that Winberry violates the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee that every state must have a republican form of government. “Under the doctrine of Winberry v. Salisbury,” wrote New Jersey lawyer Anthony Kearns in a 1955 ABA Journal article, “we can only conclude that laws of practice and procedure are exclusively in the hands of men who are not elected.”
Malanga clearly lays out how New Jersey’s Supreme Court has taken over the state’s education policy and funding with no improvement in urban education to show for the $40 billion that has been wasted as a result of the Abbott decisions. He lays out the history of how the court usurped local zoning power with the Mt. Laurel decisions and COAH. He connects the dots in explaining how those two extra-constitutional power grabs have resulted in massive wealth redistribution, with no societal benefit, and an oppressive system of goverments.
Malanga stressed the importance of Christie’s promise to reshape the court with judges who will interpret the constitution rather than relating to it as a “living document.” However, he is not optimistic because of “…a Democrat-controlled legislature that’s often happy to dodge responsibility for heavy spending by letting the court mandate it.”
Hat tip to InTheLobby for bring this important article to our attention.
The Senate Education Committee approved the bill along a party line vote. Democrats Teresa Ruiz, Shirley Turner and James Beach voted yes. Republicans Diane Allen and Michael Doherty voted no.
Your children and grandchildren will be asked the following questions in surveys taken at public schools, without parental consent, if a bill, S454, is passed by the legislature and signed by the Governor:
Are you bisexual, homosexual, heterosexual, or not sure?
Have you had sex with males or females, or males and females?
Do you use contraception when you have sex?
How many people have you had sex with?
Die you drink or do drugs before having sex?
The survey explains that a child could become so depressed about the future that they may consider suicide, and goes on to query:
Have you seriously attempted suicide?
Do you plan to attempt suicide?
How many times have you attempted suicide in the past?
A similar bill was killed in the State Assembly after a huge public outcry last June. Now its back, this time in the Senate.
Call NJ Senate President Steve Sweeney:
(856) 251-9801 (West Deptford)
(856) 455-1011 (Bridgeton)
(856) 339-0808 (Salem)
Call the Members of the New Jersey Senate Education Committee:
Ruiz, M. Teresa – Chair (973) 484-1000
Turner, Shirley K. – Vice-Chair (609) 530-3277
Allen, Diane B. (609) 239-2800
Beach, James (856) 429-1572
Doherty, Michael J. (He will vote NO!; Thank him.) (908) 835-0552
We defeated this only last June – and it’s back again!
Will be discussed in the Senate Education Committee Today.
