Statehouse Nuggets, Death Penalty Edition

by: Jay Lassiter

Thu Dec 13, 2007 at 02:02:20 PM EST

*Update* 4pm Assemblywoman Marcia Karrow: Let's keep the death penalty because "monsters" are "mean." 

*Update* 3:45p.  On and on it goes.  Back and forth.  Nice that most arguments are heartfelt and thoughtful.  Now if only they could wrap it us since no one is adding anything new to the debate at this point.  Thankfully I was just paid a visit from the Snickers fairy.  Packed with peanuts, it can satisfy the hunger of even the crankiest of liberal bloggers.

*Update 7* 3:15p Sen-elect O'Toole just rose to offer a sound and thoughtful perspective.  I don't agree with his point, but at least he doesn't feel the need to make it personal.  People of good conscience can disagree.  Can we live with that?

*Update 6*Assemblyman Carroll  is quoting Antonin Scalia, chapter and verse to hammer home that liberals are crazy.  Note to Carroll: if you come across as crazy chracterizing others as crazy, then the argument is lost.  Just a thought.

OMG OMG!! Did Carroll just quote Lord of the Rings?  From Scalia to Froddo and back .  Wow. Well, at least the dude has some range!

Update 5 GOP Asm. Dave Wolfe just stepped up to prove that you can make a honest well meaning argument without sounding panic alarms all over the place.  He shared an anecdote: recently at a cafe, we polled 10 constituents.  Four were against- , four were pro-, and two others didn't know.

*Update 4* Bateman is being grilled by the death penalty fetishists in his party.  Assemblyman Merck is leading the charge.  To hear him talk, you might judge him a bit of a douchbag fear mongerer.

*Update 3*GOP Assemblyman Bateman is the bill's co-sponsor.  Bateman: "When I joined this body 14 years ago, I never dreamed I would rise to make this pitch."

He is telling the story of a constituent (and crime victim) who was the catalyst of his change of heart on this issue.  Like many of us, he used to feel differenty on this topic.  But "we have an opportunity to day to chart a new course."

*Update 2* 2:35pm: Assemblyman Caraballo opens.  This is his bill and his legacy.

*Update 1* It's 2:30p and we are finally underway.  The first order of business: Senator -elect Bill Baroni's motion to remember "fellow Hamiltonian" Dr. David Rebovich who passed away recently.  It was a nice gesture that also managed to dial back the intensity in the room.  Clearly Rebovich is still much beloved under this roof. 

The Death Penalty repeal is the big item on the docket today, but the most exquisite tension in Trenton centers around the Family Leave battle.

At this writing (1:45p) the Assembly is sitting for official portraits prior to votes.

I dare say that the Assembly Dems are squeezing a lot in today with votes and pix.  All this after a long afternoon in caucus where family leave was the main course.

As soon as I know, ya'll know.

ICE raid in Englewood??!!

by: lsanchez490

Tue Mar 27, 2007 at 12:23:28 AM EDT

END THE ATTACK ON IMMIGRANTS!
DEFEND THE RIGHTS OF ALL WHO LIVE AND WORK IN NEW JERSEY!

STATE-WIDE SPEAK-OUT AND PROTEST MEETING

Saturday March 31 1:00 PM
Paul Robeson CenterBusch Campus
600 Bartholomew Rd
Piscataway, NJ

Immigrants in New Jersey, as in the rest of the United States, are facing increasing attacks. ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) raids are being stepped up, tearing families apart, detaining and deporting those who have lived here for years. Demagogic town governments are taking anti-immigrant measures. Morristown, for example, is planning to deputize its police as ICE agents.  Massive workplace raids like the recent one in New Bedford, Mass. can happen at any time. A New Jersey radio station, 101.5, has called for people to turn in their neighbors as suspected undocumented immigrants, encouraging vigilantism.

The attacks on migrants are attacks on all of us. They are aimed at maintaining an underclass of workers who are too terrified to assert their rights to decent pay, working conditions and living conditions.  No one, not even the government, wants to deport 12 million undocumented immigrants who are vital to the economy. The attacks and anti-immigrant laws aim to drive down the cost of all labor, benefiting employers, pitting worker against worker, and hurting us all.

We are fighting back, immigrants and native-born united!  We are speaking out against the attacks and the demagogic proposal in towns like Morristown's and Freehold.  We are starting to organize a Rapid Response Network which will give aid to those confronting ICE raids or employer abuses of immigrants. We are joining with organizations across the country to organize a Second Great  Boycott.

Speak out for the rights of ALL!

We invite your organization's endorsement and participation in this event and in an April 3 noon press conference in New Brunswick

Endorsing organizations(list in formation):
NJ May 1 Coalition
IRATE/First Friends
NJ Civil Rights Defense Committee
Philippine Forum
United Day Laborers of Freehold

Interested in reading about progressive Morristown:
Town seeks new power over illegal immigrants
Morristown wants to give its police the same authority as federal officers

Much respect to Assemblyman Wilfredo Caraballo.
Hispanics steamed by shock radio stunt

And from a New York Times Article, good old Freehold.

PUBLIC LIVES; Back in the Fight He Picked Decades Ago
Article Tools Sponsored By
By LYNDA RICHARDSON
Published: March 17, 2004

CESAR A. PERALES, the president of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, is revved up. But he is not losing his cool. (He is too cool for that.) He is talking about the fund's wranglings in federal court over the attempt by Freehold Borough in Monmouth County, N.J., to prevent day laborers from gathering at a vacant lot to scout for work.

''The question of the treatment of day laborers is so flagrant, I feel it viscerally,'' Mr. Perales says, leaning over to emphasize the point. ''This is to me as horrific as the segregation that the government imposed in the South. We're seeing local governments treating undocumented workers in a similar fashion, marginalizing them, not wanting them to live where they live. This is a fight that will take a long time.''