The following is an extract from a white paper that I sent to selected New Jersey legislators. A link to the complete paper, including references, is at the end of this post.
Pundits are fond of pontificating that "government should be run like a business." What they are really saying is that since businesses answer to shareholders and must squeeze out every cent of profit, those who run a successful business must constantly keep their eye on the bottom line. From there, it's an easy leap to the conclusion that every decision made by a business or government entity should be viewed through a fiscal lens.
Like all simplifications, the pundits' manifesto has some grain of truth, but upon closer inspection one realizes that the real world is much more complex.
First, running an entity "like a business" is not a recipe for success. Remember Borders? People Express? Enron?
Like running a government, running a business requires the use of continually improving tools and techniques. But tools in and of themselves are not the answer.
Take, for example, Lieutenant Governor Kim Guadagno's "Red Tape Commission." No one can argue that the elimination of red tape is a good thing. Or can they? Some so-called red tape provides the checks and balances necessary to ensure that promoting a good business climate does not have the side effect of destroying the environment or putting unsafe products in the hands of consumers. So while the elimination of unnecessary red tape is a desirable goal, one must wonder if that's the real impetus behind this commission. The Guadagno Commission is a Band-Aid, not a long-term solution. As we will describe later, the real goal is the elimination of waste, not red tape. There's a difference.
There are few Republicans that I would consider voting for. But if I see a member of the GOP who I think would bring the party back to becoming a viable loyal opposition instead of a bunch of extremist corporatists, I would consider voting for that candidate.
Shelley Lovett was such a candidate in the recent election, a Republican running for Assembly from the Fourth Legislative District in Gloucester County. While she lost to political neophyte Gabriela Mosquera, Lovett was the kind of Republican we need in Trenton. When I met with Lovett back in October, she said "public education is the most important thing we can give our children" - heresy in the Christie religion. Lovett was open to the idea of giving voters a say in the establishment of charter schools and had concerns about the use of standardized tests in teacher evaluation as proposed by Governor Christie's "reforms." Lovett's Assembly running mate, Pat Fratticcoli, is also a member of that dying breed of moderate Republicans, and had either one been elected, I would not have been disappointed.
In what constitutes an article by Politico's standards, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie's recent tantrum, which some have described as an audition for the VP slot with the seemingly inevitable Republican Presidential nominee (unless one of the other six candidates not named Herman Cain and hopefully named Michele Bachmann have something to say about it), Mitt Romney, about President Barack Obama's so-called failure to lead the so-called supercommittee to reach a deal on our country's budget deficit, was basically reprinted for public consumption, including Christie calling Obama "a bystander in the Oval Office" and asking him "What the hell are we paying you for?". His tirade goes further to say the following:
"In New Jersey, the reason [problems got solved] is because I called people into the room and said we're going to solve this problem and I had people of good will on the other side who said they believed it was their obligation, regardless of party, to get done things like pension and benefit reform," the governor said, adding, "Why the president of the United States refuses to do this is astonishing to me."
As obnoxious as Christie's entire tirade was, what bothered me most about the "article" was his stenographer's unwillingness or inability to compare and contrast the political dynamic here in New Jersey with what is going on in Washington and recognize that both are broken for very different reasons.
In Washington, there is a Republican minority in the Senate that can bring our entire government to a standstill by filibustering everything that comes before them and a majority in the House that passes legislation that is so extreme that there is no chance that it would ever survive a Senate committee much less get a vote in the Senate.
Meanwhile, in Trenton, we have Democratic "leadership" that is bought and paid for by party bosses who have more in common with our state's Republican Governor than our party's rank-and-file. As a result, we have a facade of bipartisanship presented to the general public and the lazy mass media, where the storyline is always that Christie presents an initiative in its purest, right-wing form, the Democratic leadership presents a modicum of resistance, making a little bit of noise in the process, Christie scales his initiative back slightly, and the Democratic leadership claims victory, delivers the votes needed for Christie's initiative to pass, while everyone else votes against it, lamenting its passage, while retaining the "high road" even though most, if not all of them, elected and recently re-elected the leadership that continues to enable Christie on each and every issue, while he crows about all of his "bipartisan" successes.
So who are the real bystanders? To be fair, I think that President Obama failed our country, once again, this summer when he refused to heed former President Bill Clinton's advice and unilaterally raise the debt ceiling on constitutional grounds and let the fight go from there. It was not as if the latest in what seems like an endless string of compromises earned him any more good will with the Republicans in Washington, who continue to block him on everything that he tries to do, than every other compromise before it.
But Obama's willingness to capitulate to Republicans on every issue pales in comparison to what we have seen from the Democrats in Trenton who went so far as to let the Republican minority write the first budget that they would pass without even considering for a moment the possibility of a government shutdown like the one which took place when they could not reach an accord with then-Democratic Governor Jon "MF Global Clusterfuck" Corzine on their first budget. The pen/ben debacle was only the latest in an almost equally long string of capitulations that started before Christie was even sworn in as Governor, when 9 Democrats did not vote for marriage equality legislation that could have passed and been signed into law by Governor Clusterfuck (kudos to Rosi for making it not only acceptable, but cool, to use a word like clusterfuck in political discourse - this is second only to the omnipresence of the phrase "batshit crazy" that people like the aforementioned Congresswoman Bachmann have inspired).
This went up just before the weekend news roundup, so I'm pulling it up top for those who missed it. - Rosi
Lt. Governor Kim Guadagno may have been successful in denying the voters of the Eighth Legislative District a choice in their next state senator, but former candidate and nine time Olympic Gold Medal winner Carl Lewis still has his oar in the water (sorry for the mixed metaphor!) of New Jersey politics.
Blue Jersey caught up with the World's Fastest Man at a GOTV rally last night in Willingboro. Our interview is below. Carl Lewis explains why he's not a politician, he excoriates 7th District Senator Diane Allen for her politically-motivated vote against women, correlates the Occupy Movement with New Jersey politics, and explains why voting is important. Below the fold is a video of Lewis' remarks to the crowd.
John Reitmeyer at Bergen Record is reporting that hazardous materials personnel are on scene at Lieutenant Governor Kim Guadagno's office, where reporter Michael Gartland is there and tweeting from @MichaelGartland.
There is a constant buzz about the possibility that Governor Christie might run for the presidency despite his often colorful and emphatic denials. If he were to run and even to win, what could we expect to happen within NJ? And what might it be like with Lieutenant Governor Kim Guadagno temporarily assuming his powers while he crisscrosses the country, and even ascending to the governorship if he is elected President?
According to our constitution, "In the event of the absence from the State of a Governor in office ... the functions, powers, duties and emoluments of the office shall devolve upon the Lieutenant Governor until the Governor returns to the state." Nonetheless, although Christie would be frequently out of state campaigning, he would de-facto remain in charge. He already has in place a strong and supportive team of Executive Office leaders in Richard Bagger, Bill Stepien, Wayne Hasenbalg and Jeff Chiesa who understand and are good at carrying out his wishes. Even though some might join his campaign staff, others would remain in Trenton to keep order and to convey instructions to Guadagno and cabinet members. Also, Christie has local consultants, advisors, friends, high-power friends, and people inserted within the various departments who can keep a watchful eye and act as enforcers.
The same three judges that ordered that Lewis be on the ballot just last week today took him off the ballot. Thomas Ambro and Thomas Vanaskie, both Democratic appointees, reversed their votes and joined Republican appointee Anthony Scirica, who had voted in the minority last week, for a unanimous decision. (If there's a silver lining, it's good to see the lack of pure partisan politics by judges and some display of an independent judicial system - which we, at least some of the time, still have).
This may from the headlines seem like just another turn in the long road of Lewis' on again, off again run, but it's much more than that. And it's probably the end of the road. For more on why, read below the fold.
The Carl Lewis saga continues to play out in the 9-time-Olympic Champ's favor, despite the Burlington Republican machine's concerted efforts to have him throw off the ballot. The BurlCoGOP likes things the quick-n-easy way for reasons too numerous to name here.
Anyway check of this video where Carl discusses issues like education, the millionaire's tax and jobs. Nadia Comaneci and Doctor Freud come as well.
Is this the end of the road? Maybe - at least it's more likely the end of the road than any of the prior rulings. A decision of a three-judge panel of a U.S. Court of Appeals can be appealed to all judges on the panel ("en banc") or to the U.S. Supreme Court. Given that ballots are just days from printing, that would all have to happen really quickly. An en banc hearing could happen, given that today's decision was a close one - 2-1, with Judge Scirica (a former Republican State Assemblyman from PA himself, and an appointee of President Reagan) dissenting from the majority opinion of Judges Ambro (appointed by President Clinton) and Vanaskie (appointed originally by President Clinton and elevated to the Court of Appeals last year by President Obama). But it's also quite possible that the full court would simply stand especially with the short time available - all in all, en banc hearings are rare. A Supreme Court intervention seems even less likely (this isn't quite Bush v. Gore).
For the story behind the decision, read below the jump...
This week, LG/Secretary of State Kim Guadagno kicked Carl Lewis off the ballot again (getting serious criticism for her partisan overreaching). Lewis' lawyer wants to depose Guadagno for a look at how she made her decision to remove him from the ballot. His position is that Guadagno ignored key pieces of evidence of his NJ residency. Perhaps as importantly, her decision also came after Christie tried to talk Lewis out of running at all, though Christie denies that conversation ever took place. It's pretty clear this isn't over.
Carl Lewis is running. Next to him, Bill Brown of Veterans for Education
And Carl Lewis is running.
The 9-time Olympic gold medalist is a track legend, who topped the world in the long jump and in sprint. But if campaigns are marathons, he's right now out there running. Really running.
And if you want to run with him, you can. He'll be doing weekly runs with voters. Tomorrow, you can find him across from the Westhampton Rescue Squad, setting off from 195 Woodlane Road. Kids are invited; the candidate will be walking in addition to running, but bring comfortable shoes. Look for updates on his website.
Hey, don't blame Chris Christie for decisions made by his administration! Just because he appointed his Lt. Guv to run the Secretary of State's office doesn't mean he has anything to do with those decisions.
Answering the charge by the Lewis campaign that he's ultimately responsible for keeping the LD8 state Senate candidate off the ballot, Gov. Chris Christie today said he didn't make the decision not to certify Lewis. ...
via Twitter account of Courier Post political reporter Jane Roh, we learn that the NJ Supreme Court has upheld the decision by LG Kim Guadagno (acting in her dual capacity of Secretary of State, as appointed by Gov. Christie) that 9-time Olympic gold medalist Carl Lewis is ineligible to run for the NJ Senate. This may mean his name will appear on primary ballots but be off of general election ballots.
Republicans are fond of saying that government should be run like a business.
Imagine a business where the CEO's second-in-command is so fiscally inept that when asked about the return on a $294,000 investment, she says, "We don't keep track of specifics." That person would be fired faster than you could say Ken Lay.
Well, that's exactly what Lieutenant Governor Kim Guadagno replied when asked about the money spent in a futile effort to attract business from Illinois to New Jersey.
Either Guadagno is a fiscally irresponsible leader, or she has so much disdain for New Jersey's taxpayers that she doesn't care. Or maybe she's just emulating her boss.
Carl Lewis has lost his bid to have a judge reinstate his name on New Jersey primary election ballots this afternoon, as the judge upholds the state's 4-year residency rule. Via politickernj, U.S. District Court Judge Noel Hillman in his ruling:
Whatever a candidate's personal qualities may be, they have to have four years of boots on the ground.
[ snip ]
These powers and this state constitution has been part of the standing law of this state for 167 years. While difficult, the voters of the State of New Jersey have long had the power to change this provision and at least twice passed... The power to change it and the failure to change it... stands for the proposition that the majority of people want a four-year (residency requirement).
The decision, this afternoon in U.S. District Court in Camden, comes in just under the wire in the schedule for ballots to be sent by mail today. Yesterday, the judge granted a preliminary injunction to stop election officials from issuing those primary ballots before he rendered his decision.
One wonders how this news will go down in the front office of the most political governor in New Jersey's history, the Unitary Executive Chris Christie, whose number 2 on his ticket is also - Katherine Harris style - the top election official in New Jersey, by his order.
In the latest development in Olympic gold medalist and Democrat Carl Lewis' efforts to get on the LD-8 ballot for Senate, a federal judge has just ordered LG Kim Guadagno (who also serves Gov. Christie in a dual capacity as Secretary of State), NJ Attorney General Paula Dow and the three county clerks inside the 8th District to show why Lewis should not be included in the vote-by-mail primary election ballots due to be sent out Thursday.
Yesterday, in a highly questionable and certainly controversial decision, Guadagno knocked Lewis off the LD-8 ballot. In doing so she granted the position taken by Republicans that Lewis does not meet residency requirements. Administrative law judge John Schuster 3rd had earlier dismissed the GOP residency challenge, saying the Republicans failed to meet the burden of proof.
Lewis has already filed suit against Guadagno in federal court, claiming the residency requirement violates the US constitution, and his civil rights, and requesting a restraining order on printing and mailing primary ballots without his name. US District Court Judge Noel Hillman said if Lewis is eventually found eligible to run "the mailing of inaccurate or incomplete primary election ballots could constitute irreparable harm and confuse voters on a matter of fundamental public interest." Hillman's order essentially keeps Lewis on the ballot, at least for now. And it requires state and county clerks to make their case against an injunction sending those ballots out. The parties meet at the U.S. District Court in the District of New Jersey in Camden at 1 p.m. tomorrow.
They certainly matter to NJ Governor Chris Christie, who took a special interest in the election for State Senate in the 8th Legislative District, in which Olympic Gold Medalist and Willingboro native Carl Lewis had plans to run as a Democrat.
(H)e received the first of increasingly tense phone calls from Frank Luna, a veteran political operative who performs constituent services for the governor.
Luna asked Walker, executive director of the Carl Lewis Foundation, whether Lewis was running for the Eighth District Senate seat. According to Walker, Luna told him: "The governor is concerned."
The two spoke daily the next two days, and on April 9, Walker said, Luna told him "the governor is very upset and disappointed, and Carl would be embarrassing himself by running."
Walker said that in that April 9 conversation, Luna told him, "How can you expect the governor to work hand-in-hand with Carl when Carl is working against him? You can forget about this program."
We get the government we deserve. For those Democrats who were disappointed with the Corzine campaign and decided to stay home in November 2009, or worse, voted for Christie thinking "how bad can he be?", consider this: It could have been Loretta Weinberg making the decision on Carl Lewis' eligibility to run in NJ.While we cannot know for sure how a Secretary of State Weinberg would have ruled, we can be reasonably sure that, stateswoman that she is, she would have given careful consideration to the facts of the case and ruled as Secretary of State, not as the Governor's sock puppet.
To paraphrase Bill Clinton: if you don't vote, you are, in fact, voting for the person you don't want. Let's not let that happen again.
Get out and vote today if your school district is holding elections today.
Get out and vote in November. We need a Democratic majority in the Legislature to hold this out-of-control Governor in check.
Kim Guadagno = Katherine Harris. Why is the #2 on Christie's ticket, the most political governor in New Jersey history, the top election official in the state of New Jersey?
From the tweets of political and statehouse reporters @Jane_Roh and @lisafleisher we get the news that LG Kim Guadagno, serving in her dual capacity as Gov. Christie's Secretary of State, has found that Carl Lewis does not meet residency requirements to run for the LD-8 state senate seat, which he was seeking as a Democrat. This decision overturns the finding of administrative law Judge John Schuster 3rd last Wednesday who dismissed the Republican's residency challenge against Lewis, saying they had not met the burden of proof.
There is a fundamental conflict of interest when a partisan - and the number 2 on the Christie ticket - such as Guadagno is allowed to be in a position to decide a matter like this. Guadagno should not be in the same power position Katherine Harris was; the conflict of interest issues are plain, simple and obvious.
Just this morning, we asked the question: Why is the GOP scared of Carl Lewis? And, yes, it is impossible for any but the deepest Republican partisans not to question whether GOP partisanship was a factor in Guadagno's decision. And if - and how hard - Chris Christie leaned on her to decide this way. We already know, via Cynthia Burton at Philadelphia Inquirer, that Christie personally tried to talk Lewis out of running mere hours before he announced his candidacy.
LG Guadagno's decision can be appealed. Count on it to be appealed. This is a developing story. When we have Lewis' statement, and Guadagno's and further details, we'll add them.
*UPDATE* Governor Chris Christie exercised more over-reach as his deputy tossed Carl Lewis from the ballot.Read it and Weep.
After calling Carl Lewis a political lightweight who'd be "embarrassing himself if he ran," the Chris Christie administration continues to throw roadblocks at the 9-times Olympic champ's bid for NJ Senate.
(The BurlCo frontier)-- It's becoming quite a spectacle watching the entire state Republican apparatus bend over backwards to keep Carl Lewis from running against GOP Senator-select Dawn Addiego this November.
Once thought to be the Republican's opening salvo (tossing Lewis - a Democrat - from the ballot on on a residency technicality) turns out to be part of an orchestrated attempt to take the choice from the voters in Burlington County, where -- not coincidentally -- GOP party goons reign supreme. As early as April 9th -- two days before Lewis filed his petitions to run -- Governor Christie decided to clear the Republican path to victory with a little Jersey-style arm twisting.
Gov. Christie tried to talk Olympic medalist Carl Lewis out of running and [...] Christie's staff threatened that if Lewis decided to run, an athletic program he wanted to start would be scuttled.
Back in 2008, then-Monmouth County Sheriff Kim Guadagno hired a new "Sheriff's Chief" - retired investigator Michael Donovan, Jr. The operative word is "retired," because with Guadagno's help and apparent malfeasance, Donovan secured himself a sweet deal (scam) that has, to date, cost the state of New Jersey nearly a quarter of a million dollars. Charged with getting to the bottom of this is Treasury, whose investigation of the matter has - strangely - fallen apart at the seams. But let's rewind.
As defined by state statute, "sheriff's chief officer" and "chief warrant officer" are not the same thing. A key distinction between the two titles is that "chief warrant officer" is considered a temporary position, exempt from the Police and Firemen's Retirement System (PFRS). A "sheriff's chief officer," however, is a permanent position, and does qualify for PFRS.
As confirmed by multiple official documents collected and distributed this week by NewJerseyWatchdog.org (who first highlighted this story), Donovan was hired as the Sheriffs Chief Officer. You can see for yourself on this org chart, this website, and this memo from Guadagno herself, all of which clearly show Donovan as SCO. By accepting this position, a retired investigator like Donovan would be required to stop collecting retirement benefits; he also would have to re-enroll in PFRS.
Yet personnel records list Donovan as "Chief Warrant Officer" - strange, because 1) that's not the job he was hired to do, 2) that job doesn't exist on any current org chart, and 3) the very position of Chief Warrant Officer was eliminated by an order from Guadagno just one week before Donovan started. Guadagno even went as far as to announce Donovan's hiring as CWO in a press release. But it simply wasn't true - it was, in fact, part of a deception engineered by Guadagno to help Donovan cheat the pension system.
Double-dipping Donovan gets his cake ($85k yearly retirement benefits), and gets to eat it, too ($87,500 yearly salary as SCO). To date, this scam has cost New Jersey $245,000. And the friendly favor/theft originates with one Lt. Governor Kim Guadagno, whose fudgy paperwork now threatens to embarrass the Christie administration in a big way - which may be why the NJ Treasury has mysteriously been unable to find any wrongdoing (even when presented with overwhelming evidence), expose this fraud, and get New Jersey's money back.
If Christie wants to prove that his corruption-busting is in no way political, let's see him appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Guadagno under the NJ State Constitution, Article 5, Section IV, Paragraph 5.
Of all the many headlines in New Jersey blizzard news now gone national and international, "Chris Christie's Katrina" - which I saw for the first time in APP- is the most compelling. Some are funnier, some are even harsher. But "Chris Christie's Katrina" reminds us of who put some ideas behind Christie, who protected Christie as he was coming up, and some of the darker implications of deconstructing government, its services and its obligations.
The ideology that disrespects government, while running government, is an off-putting concept, and one we were happy to shake off once we got George W. Bush out of office after 8 long years, and two miserable terms, only during the second of which did most Americans catch on to the destruction he was doing.
As George Bush helped jell the forming Christie, Grover Norquist helped form the jelling George W. Bush. And that is why the irresponsibility and detachment of Bush during Hurricane Katrina was so well defined: Grover Norquist had already spelled it out for us: "I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub." Does that kind of government reduction in force, with casual regard for the outcomes, sound familiar to you in New Jersey? Hurricanes, particularly Katrina, are not northeastern blizzards. That's not the comparison being drawn. The detachment, the cluelessness, the lack of respect for constituents, the vacationing is the comparison being drawn. And like Katrina hurt Bush, this blizzard may impact how New Jerseyans think of their absent leader; after a year of news coverage of Gov. Christie as a phenom, a brash character, a leader among governors, a Teflon personage unmarred by screwups like massive botched education grants, Christie's neglect should be compared to Bush's. They're very different personalities, and frankly our governor has way more on the ball than Bush, but the acorn doesn't fall far.
