This probably won't come as news to anyone who reads Blue Jersey, but Tom Moran has a must-read column about the fight within the Democratic party to restore good government and end the fundamentally undemocratic abuses of power brokers and public office holders:Democrats in Bergen County are fighting a civil war that pits a small band of reformers against one of the richest and most powerful machines in the state.
The surprise is that the reformers, led by Sen. Loretta Weinberg, are winning. They have survived every attempt by the machine to knock them off.
And now they are switching to offense by unmasking the greedy habits of their own party's leadership -- an insiders' club that is enriching itself with big public contracts. [...]
This, of course, is driving the machine Democrats insane. Weinberg and her merry band have turned from the barricades to fire backward at their own officers. It is a mutiny, plain and simple.
And let's hope the rebellion spreads, because it's probably the only hope for reform in this long-suffering state.
The Republican Party is an empty shell these days. So for now, change has to come from within the Democratic Party. [...]
So far, most Democrats are watching and waiting. Some whisper to Weinberg in the hallways of the Statehouse, encouraging her. But they won't stick out their own necks.
"Too many of them, their goal is to get re-elected," Weinberg says. "But there's got to be the next goal -- what do you do when you get there?" Blue Jersey has long publicly opposed the trading of jobs for political loyalty or the rewarding of contracts for campaign contributions that is rampant in Bergen County (and other parts of the state). It's surprising (okay, not really) how often elected officials and other insiders will privately tell us they agree, but remain publicly silent. Many are simply not willing to risk their jobs to challenge what appears to be an unstoppable juggernaut. So while the "merry band" Moran talks about appears small, the support runs deeper than it looks, which may explain why they have been successful so far.
Any time the issue of corruption and good government is raised, the straw man that's always foisted up is that because the "reformers" aren't 100% squeaky clean, they can't possibly be fit to try to set the bar higher for good government. For example, though Moran seems to disagree, there is obvious hypocrisy in calling for an end to dual office-holding while remaining a dual office-holder yourself, as is the case with Assemblyman (and Englewood councilman) Gordon Johnson. Whether the conflict is real or perceived, Johnson should step down from one of his two elected offices, because when it comes to the public trust perception is reality.
While this is no doubt a struggle for power and control in Bergen County, for me, this isn't about Senator Weinberg or Assemblymembers Huttle and Johnson so much as it is about good government. And that is what they represent. They no doubt understand that if they take control and resort to the same undemocratic tactics abused by the current power brokers, they should expect another merry band to challenge them...and eventually win. |
