Corruption and the November Election

by: mikeshapiro

Wed Oct 03, 2007 at 10:51:19 PM EDT

Jim Murray at odds with the party of seniority

by: Moshe Cohen

Wed Aug 15, 2007 at 01:03:14 AM EDT

We agree with Jim Murray. Seniority protects professional politicians and is a barrier to new ideas and change. This institution needs a reform. It will come from within the Republican Party and from Democratic challengers.

Moshe Cohen, Freeholder Candidate.

TODAY: Rally for Loretta Weinberg, Gordon Johnson and Valerie Vainieri-Huttle. PLEASE JOIN US!

by: Steven Goldstein, Garden State Equality chair

Tue Jan 16, 2007 at 06:53:54 PM EST

Update 2: More people are still arriving. The unions say "we stand up for the people who have always stood up for us."

Update 3: In attendance: HPAE, Local 164, laborers local 592, CWA, Firefighters union district 37, Garden State Equality, Phyllis Salloway-Kaye of Citizen Action

Update 4: Also attending: Amy Goldsmith of the NJ Environmental Federation, SEIU, UFCW, Mike Herson of the Sierra Club.

Join us Wednesday, January 17 at 4 pm in Paramus at a HUGE RALLY of union leaders and progressive activists to support Senator Loretta Weinberg, Assemblyman Gordon Johnson and Assemblywoman Valerie Vainieri Huttle.

Wednesday, January 17 at 4 pm
IBEW 164 Union Hall Auditorium
205 Robin Road
Paramus, NJ 07652

4 pm: Loretta, Gordon and Valerie hold a pre-rally meeting with progressive activists -- they want to talk to us before the hoopla.  A photographer will be present to take photos of each of us with the legislators.

5 pm:  The rally itself.  A who's who of labor and progressive activists across the state -- it's going to be amazing.

Here's why the event has historic significance:  There aren't enough times when we progressives join with our incredible friends from the labor movement in political action.  New Jersey, as you know, is per capita the most unionized state in America.  And thanks in huge part to Blue Jersey, its bloggers and their other respective organizations, New Jersey right now is the hottest place for progressive activism in America.

Imagine all we can achieve when progressives and labor unite! 

This event is also when we progressives, almost all of us staunch Democrats, stand up to a county party machine when it strays from the values of progressive, clean and open government that we cherish by not expressing sufficient support for incredible legislators like Loretta, Gordon and Valerie - reformers and champions of justice everyday in every way.

What an incredible signal we're sending with this event, one that will reverberate politically statewide. 

So join us
Wednesday, January 17 at 4 pm
IBEW 164 Union Hall Auditorium
205 Robin Road
Paramus, NJ 07652

Please don't hesitate to be in touch if you have any questions.  Best, Steven, cell (917) 449-8918, Goldstein@GardenStateEquality.org.

Love you, Blue Jersey!

North Jersey Impeach Group for Voters' Bill of Rights

by: hutch

Thu Oct 12, 2006 at 09:56:21 PM EDT

  From unreliable electronic voting machines and millions of uncounted ballots, to partisan election officials and 10 hour waits at the polls, it’s clear our electoral system is in dire need of an overhaul.  To build a more just, secure and robust dem-ocracy, support the following 10-point Voters’ Bill of Rights:

1. Eliminate Rigged Voting Mechanisms  — 
  Hard Copy Paper Ballots are Most Reliable
  It’s demonstrated indisputably that no type of voting machine produced is “tamper-proof.”  All mechanisms available today, whether voting by lever, computerized electronic machines, optical scan devices, even systems that offer “paper trail receipts” can record your vote as cast but actually vote for the other candidate in the tally — the final vote count.  The only real tamper-proof system is voting by paper ballots with votes physically marked by the voter, and those votes tallied with non-partisan oversight conducted under oath with federal  penalties for misconduct in the election vote counting.
This must be our national standard for democracy.

2. Replace Partisan Oversight with Non-Partisan Election Commissions
  It’s time to overhaul our federal, state, and local election agencies to guarantee fair elections.  We must replace the current system of partisan election administration, in which partisan secretaries of state, county clerks, election commissioners, and other partisan officials are able to issue rulings that favor their own political parties and themselves, with a non-partisan, independent system of running elections.  We must end the practice of contracting out fundamental election functions, such as the maintenance of voter lists, to private corporations. We must also insure that independent internnational and domestic election observers are given full access to monitor our elections.

3. Celebrate Democracy: Make Election Day a National Holiday
  People should not be forced to choose between exercising their right to vote and getting to work on time.  While the laws of 30 states guarantee the right to take time off from work to vote, many workers and employers are unaware of these laws.  Holding national elections on a national holiday will greatly increase the number of available poll workers and polling places and increase overall turnout, while making it much easier for working Americans to go to the polls.  Election Day is already a holiday in Puerto Rico in presidential election years, and many Puerto Ricans celebrate and make Election Day a fun and festive party with a purpose.  It's time for the United States to follow Puerto Rico's lead.

4. Make it Easier to Vote
  Many citizens are discouraged from voting by unnecessary bureaucratic hurdles and restrictions.  We must simplify and rationalize voter registration so that no one is again disenfranchised for failing to check a superfluous box, as occurred this year in Florida, or for not using heavy enough paper, as nearly occurred in Ohio.  We must require voter registrars to sign affidavits promising to submit any registrations in their possession in a timely manner.  We must eliminate police intimidation, language, physical disability, extra-legal requirements of personal identification, and other barriers to voting.  To ensure that all qualified voters are able to vote, we must follow the lead of states like Minnesota and Wisconsin by replacing restrictive voter residency requirements with same-day voter registration, allowing qualified voters to register at the polls on Election Day itself.

  Our current system forces millions of voters to wait up to 10 hours to vote.  This is unacceptable, and it disenfranchises those who cannot afford to wait.  To increase access to the polls, all states must provide sufficient funding for enough early voting and election day polling places to guarantee smooth and speedy voting.  To ensure equal access and minimize the wait at the polls, election authorities must allocate resources based upon the number of potential voters per precinct.  We must put an end to the government-backed practice of allowing partisan activists to challenge the voting rights of individual voters at the polls. Instead, the government must invest in campaigns designed to educate voters about how they can exercise and protect their right to vote.

5. Count Every Vote!
  Voters must know that their vote will count and make a difference.  Every recent presidential election has been marred by the discounting millions of spoiled, under-vote, over-vote, provisional and absentee ballots.  This discounting of votes has disproportionately impacted people of color, especially African Americans, and is a fundamental voting rights and racial justice problem.  Election officials must ensure that every voting precinct and wards is adequately staffed with sufficiently trained personnel and professional supervision; that old and unreliable voting machines are done away with; that absentee ballots are mailed with a sufficient time for delivery; that all ballots, including provisional ballots, are counted; and that provisional ballots count for statewide and federal contests regardless of where the vote is cast. Election officials should wait until after any recounts have been completed to provide final certification of election results.

6. Re-Enfranchise Ex-Felons & Non-Felons
  The permanent disenfranchisement of former felons, a practice that falls outside of international or even U.S. norms, is an unreasonable and dangerous penalty that weakens our democracy by creating a subclass of four million excluded American citizens.  The practice has also been used to purge voter lists of hundreds of thousands of citizens never convicted of any felony.  Because the criminal justice system disproportionately penalizes African American males, this disenfranchisement is racist in its impact and is constitutionally suspect.  Those states that permanently disenfranchise felons (Florida, Virginia, Nebraska, Mississippi, Kentucky, Iowa, Alabama, and Arizona) must amend their laws and practices to restore full citizenship to ex-offenders.

7. IMPLEMENT INSTANT RUNOFF VOTING (IRV)
  AND PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION (PR) 
  We must replace our current “first-past-the-post” system with Instant Runoff Voting (IRV).  Unlike our current system, which forces voters to reject their preferred candidate in favor of a “lesser evil” who may have a better chance of defeating the candidate they most fear, IRV allows them to choose both.  In this way, it eliminates the so-called “spoiler” and “wasted vote” effects and gives voters a more democratic set of choices.  Under IRV, voters simply rank candidates in order of their preference (first, second, etc.).  If a candidate wins a majority of first choice votes, that candidate is the winner.  If no candidate gets a majority of first choices, the lowest vote-getting candidate is eliminated, and his/her votes are given to the candidates whom the supporters of the eliminated candidate chose as their second option.  Counting continues until one candidate has received a majority.  IRV therefore not only allows voters to voice their real preferences; it also ensures that the will of the true majority, not a mere plurality, produces the winner of each election.  In addition, IRV makes it possible to conduct the runoff count without the need for a separate and expensive runoff election. Instant Runoff Voting is used successfully around the world, including Ireland, Australia, and most recently, San Francisco.

  The right of representation belongs to all citizens.  Our winner-take-all elections award representation to the largest factions and leave everyone else, often the majority, unrepresented.  The winner-take-all system unnecessarily restricts choice, polarizes politics and limits political discourse.  We must adopt Proportional Representation (PR) for legislative elections to ensure the fair representation of all voters.  Millions of Democrats in Republican areas and Republicans in Democratic areas are unrepresented in our system, and the majority of Greens, Libertarians, and other independents are unrepresented at all levels of government. Our system should provide fair representation to all voters, in proportion to their numbers.

8. Replace Big Money Control With Public Financing and Equal Air-Time
  In a system where the amount of money a candidate spends is directly related to their likelihood of winning, it is not surprising that voters think politicians are more concerned with big campaign contributors than with individual voters.  We must follow Maine's lead by establishing a nationwide system of full public financing for all ballot-qualified candidates.  We must require the broadcasting corporations that license our public airwaves to provide air time for debates, and free time for all ballot-qualified candidates and parties.

9. Guarantee Equal Access to the Ballot and Debates
  In our current electoral system, independent parties such as the Greens and Libertarians face a host of barriers designed to limit voter choice and voice.  Ballot access laws and debates specifically designed to exclude independent party candidates discourage voting and undermine the legitimacy of our elections.  In most cases, the established parties have never themselves met the signature require-ments they impose on independent parties.  We must eliminate prohibitive ballot access requirements, and replace the partisan Commission on Presidential Debates with a non-partisan Citizens Debate Commission.

10. Abolish the Electoral College and Enact
  Statehood for the District of Columbia
  It is time to end the safe state/battleground state dichotomy and make all votes equal, no matter the state of the voter. We must amend the Federal Constitution to replace election of the President by the Electoral College with direct election by the voters.  At the same time, for so long as the Electoral College persists, we must amend our state laws and constitutions to allocate each state's electors proportionately to the popular vote.

  It’s also time to end the disenfranchisement of the over half million Americans who reside in the District of Columbia.  DC residents deserve the same political rights enjoyed by citizens of our nation's fifty states, namely full voting representation in both houses of the U.S. Congress, as well as legislative, budgetary, and judicial sovereignty.  Washington D.C. is the only existing majority African American federal jurisdiction, and the denial of DC voting rights is thus inherently racist.  Furthermore, the denial of DC voting rights can’t be defended on the basis of population size; the majority white State of Wyoming has a smaller population.  It’s time to grant statehood to the District of Columbia.
North Jersey Impeach Group
117 Chestnut Drive • Wayne • NJ 07470•5639
Contact  impeachthem@gmail.com 
• info@impeachthem.com

LGBTI volunteer program for the 2006 Congressional elections -- volunteer today!

by: Steven Goldstein, Garden State Equality chair

Sun Oct 01, 2006 at 03:26:55 PM EDT

This volunteer program is open to everyone who believes in equality, whether you are LGBTI or straight.

The offices are in Jersey City, Montclair, Scotch Plains, West Trenton, Ocean Grove and Cherry Hill, so you're likely to find a location just minutes away.

But first, some background:

Two years ago, the 2004 elections marked a painful time for the LGBTI community across America.  In one of the most hateful campaigns ever, Karl Rove and the national right-wing demonized LGBTI families state by state by state.  The hatemongers didn't merely go after our freedom to marry.  They campaigned to abolish laws that give LGBTI Americans any rights, from domestic-partnership laws, to the ability to adopt children, to our inclusion in even the most elementary anti-discrimination laws. 

The 2006 elections are a whole different story.  We now have the best chance in many years to win back both houses of the U.S. Congress -- and it all comes down to New Jersey.

If U.S. Senator Bob Menendez, a steadfast champion of equality, doesn't win in November, we don't have a prayer to take back the U.S. Senate.  What an irony that would be:  Pro-LGBTI candidates for Congress are surging everywhere in America, even in the reddest of "red" states -- yet it could be New Jersey, the most progressive state in America, that keeps the U.S. Senate in the hands of those who want to strip the LGBTI community of our most fundamental human dignity.

Indeed, the stakes for us in New Jersey are higher than anywhere else in America:  When we win marriage equality -- whether in the next four weeks through a court victory, or in the next four years through our legislature's passing a statute -- our victory will completely erased if the hatemongers keep control of the U.S. Congress and finally succeed in banning marriage equality in the U.S. Constitution.

So friends, this election involves way more than choosing between two candidates -- though on its own merits, the choice is clear between pro-LGBTI U.S. Senator Bob Menendez and his Republican challenger Tom Kean Jr., who voted against the domestic-partnership law in 2004.  This election is about the bigger picture nationallly and about advancing our civil rights in New Jersey.

Garden State Equality and New Jersey Stonewall Democrats therefore ask you to volunteer in one of the six offices below, as soon as possible and as often as possible between now and Election Day, November 7th. 

So we can keep track of who our volunteers are --and can remind our leaders of the political power of the LGBTI community and our progressive allies -- we ask everyone interested in volunteering to contact Jeff Gardner, Vice Chair of Garden State Equality and director of our Election 2006 field operation, at jeffpgardner@gmail.com or cell (973) 951-7081. 

These campaign offices are open every day, every weeknight and even on weekends -- and Jeff will be able to check for you in advance.  Again, contacting Jeff, allowing us to keep track of our volunteers, is crucial.  The next time we're in a dogged fight for our civil rights, we want to say to public officials and party leaders, "We stood up for you with these great volunteers, so now stand up for us."

Thanks, everyone, from all of us at Garden State Equality and our friends at New Jersey Stonewall Democrats -- the campaign offices are below.  Best, Steven Goldstein, chair, Garden State Equality

Jersey City
Hudson County Democratic Organization
74 Oakland Avenue 

Montclair
Smith & Mullin law firm 
240 Claremont Avenue

Scotch Plains
Linda Stender for Congress campaign headquarters 
211 Park Avenue

West Trenton
Communications Workers of America Local 1034
1 Lower Ferry Road

Ocean Grove
Century 21 Coastal Realtors
67 Main Street

Cherry Hill
USBW Local 152
5 Executive Plaza

To volunteer, contact Jeff Gardner, Vice Chair of Garden State Equality and director of our Election 2006 field operation, at jeffpgardner@gmail.com or cell (973) 951-7081. 

This posting is by the Garden State Equality political organization, not the Garden State Equality Educational Fund.
 

A huge progressive test in 2007: Reelecting Sen. Loretta Weinberg

by: Steven Goldstein, Garden State Equality chair

Thu Sep 28, 2006 at 12:58:41 PM EDT