Country Before Party

The day after Independence Day, a group of over 100 citizens from the Burlington County area gathered in front of the office of Congressman Tom MacArthur to rally for the people instead of the politicians. Below are the remarks from that rally.

Jamieson Smith reads the Proclamation:




Introduction - Dr. Eileen Hill, SJ NOW Indivisible



NJ-3 Congressional Candidate - Katherine Hartman



Health Care Advocate Geoff Ginter



Kerry Bayles as Betsy Ross




Environmentalist Margo Pellegrino



Burlington County Young Democrats Chair Stephen Steglik

Meet Katie Hartman

Moorestown attorney Katie Hartman has become the third Democrat to officially announce their candidacy for the congressional seat currently being held by Tom MacArthur. Former Obama aide Andy Kim and perennial candidate Fred LaVergne have also thrown their hats into the ring. A few others have expressed interest but have not yet formally announced.

Recently, I sat down with Hartman in her law office to get to know her, talk a bit about her background, and her approach to a potential House seat.

Hartman and Kim excel in different areas, and voters will have to do their homework to determine which of the two (or more, if they announce) is: 1) More electable, and 2) would better serve the district. It is clear that either of the two would be better than Tom MacArthur who may have singlehandedly rescued TrumpCare from the heap of destruction.

Tom MacArthur Town Hall

On May 10, 2017, Congressman Tom MacArthur held a town hall meeting at the JFK Center in Willingboro. With attendance restricted to 300 people inside, over 1000 people gathered outside to protest MacArthur's resurrection of Trump's evisceration of health care for all but the wealthiest Americans. Here's an index to my videos from the event.

Andy Kim - Potential Democratic Challenger in 2018

Candice Brown - Executive Director of the Burlington County Democratic Party

Assemblyman Troy Singleton - Candidate for New Jersey State Senate

Assemblyman Herb Conaway, MD - Running for re-election

Jim Keady - Democratic candidate for U.S. Congress from New Jersey's Fourth Congressional District

Die-In - Protesters demonstrating against Tom MacArthur's gutting of health care

Hetty Rosenstein - Communications Workers of America

#TaxMarch - Press conference featuring Ann Vardeman of NJ Citizen Action and several of Tom MacArthur's constituents

Inside the venue - Unedited raw video taken by a participant inside the town hall

Action Together Burlington County March Meeting

Action Together Burlington County held its March meeting on Friday, March 31, 2017 at the First Baptist Church in Moorestown. Here are links to video of the presentations:

Candidates for Governor of New Jersey:

• Senator Ray Lesniak
• Eric Kipnis for Ambassador Phil Murphy
• Lark Kurtz for Assemblyman John Wisniewski
• Trent Seubert for Jim Johnson

Candidate for New Jersey Senate - District 8

• George Youngkin

Candidates for Burlington County Freeholder

• Balvir Singh and Tom Pullion

Keynote Speaker from ACLU on Immigration

• Alexi Velez

Black Lives Matter

• Shevone Tucker

People's Choice United - South Jersey

• Suzy Zander

What's the Difference Between Democrats and Republicans?

Professor Danley’s excellent column about the parochialism of the Democratic Party struck home when I heard a passing remark by a high-ranking state party leader lamenting the fact that the various grass roots activities like Action Together are not coalescing around the party infrastructure.

Therein lies the difference between the two parties.

When the Tea Party movement formed, its extreme philosophy was embraced by most “establishment” Republicans. Those entrenched GOP leaders like Eric Cantor who did not buy the Tea Party’s line in its entirety are gone now – voted out of office not by the establishment, but by the insurgents. All of this culminated with the “election” of Donald Trump – reviled by the insiders, but embraced by the outsiders.

Democrats, on the other hand, pretend to be listening but are actually tone deaf. I have nothing against Phil Murphy. He’d be a better governor than any of the GOP contenders. But is that the best we can do? Put another Goldman Sachs executive in Drumthwacket so soon after the Corzine debacle?

CarlLewis' NJ Senate Run Announcement - 2011

Both parties have relied on two criteria that enhance electability but don’t do much for governance. First – does the candidate bring money to the campaign? If so, we end up with people like Phil Murphy and Tom MacArthur. If a candidate can’t bring money, can he or she bring fame? Witness the Democrats’ abortive attempt to elect Olympian Carl Lewis to the state senate, and the Republicans’ elevation of football player Jon Runyan to Congress. (To his credit, Runyan realized he was over his head after two terms and dropped out for a more comfortable retirement.)

So where do the Democrats go from here? Do they hold groups like Action Together at arm’s length to be used but not embraced? Or do they treat them as equals – where the party understands the nuts and bolts of elections and the insurgents drive the agenda – a la the Tea Party movement? Only the latter approach is a recipe for success.  

It won’t happen overnight. It won’t happen in a single election cycle. But it’s important that the party establishment welcome these “insurgents” into their fold and listen to them. Action Together and similar organizations must infiltrate the Democratic Party by joining their county committees, either by appointment to vacant positions, or getting on board in the 2018 committee election cycle. They need to become the “insiders” where they can, and they need to push back on the entrenched establishment when they see business as usual.

It’s unfortunate that our political structure is established around a two-party system. That only encourages actions that place party loyalty over principles. But given that this will not change, unless the Democrats treat Action Together and similar groups as equals, or even as their bosses, the party of FDR is doomed to live and die on the back benches of power.

Will a Republican Succeed Chris Christie in Drumthwacket?

Conventional wisdom says that a Democrat will win this year’s New Jersey gubernatorial election. After all, the current Republican governor has been a disaster. His economic policies have caused our state to lag the rest of the region in recovering from the Bush Recession. His on-again, off-again bromance with SCROTUS has tarnished his tough guy image. Bridgegate was the tip of the iceberg in an administration rife with cronyism.

But just like conventional wisdom prematurely put Hillary Clinton in the White House, don’t discount the possibility of a Republican succeeding a failed party comrade in New Jersey. Democrats, who are fond of eating their young and ignoring the wisdom of the masses, may be on another path to disaster.

The party establishment jumped the gun by anointing former Goldman Sachs millionaire Jon Corzine Phil Murphy a year and a half before the election. Make no mistake – Murphy would be a more progressive governor than any of the top-seeded GOP contenders. But whether it’s fair or not, the Corzine albatross hangs around his neck – not something that will get progressive Democrats or independent voters to the polls in an off-year election.

Republicans, of course, have their own issues. Lieutenant Governor Kim Guadagno has spent the last six months distancing herself from Christie. Of course, she has her own scandals to explain away but she’s spent the last eight years courting donors and voters in her role as Secretary of State and Christie stand-in. Assemblyman Jack Ciatareli is also running. He’s good in front of a television camera and has also started to distance himself from a generally pro-Christie voting record.

Then there’s the wildcard. Saturday Night Live’s Joe Piscopo is vying to follow in the footsteps of Al Franken, another SNL alum, by entering the political fray. Piscopo has indicated that he is considering running as an independent, which could make things easier for the GOP nominee.

A bit of math is in order: Suppose Piscopo manages to skim off 20 percent of the votes, based on his name recognition and people who are fed up with the major parties. And assume the voter turnout is 25 percent – a tad better than the turnout four years ago. Then the other 80 percent of the people who go to the polls represent only 20 percent of the registered voters. Hence, it would only take a bit more than 10 percent of registered voters to select our next governor. This makes voter turnout the most important issue, and voter turnout is correlated with two things: money (which both parties will have) and enthusiasm – something that Murphy so far has not evoked among many Democrats and Independents.

Our next governor will become a big factor in the 2020 legislative and congressional redistricting activities. So he or she will not just set the course for the next four years, but for the next decade. It would be a good idea if people could channel at least some of their anti-Trump energy into ensuring that New Jersey’s next governor is one that our people could be proud of.

Our Institutionalized Gender Discrimination

Suppose you are a woman who wants to be appointed to a vacant seat for a particular political office. But you can’t. Why? Because that position is open only to males.

It sounds discriminatory, and it is. But it’s codified into law in New Jersey.

Members of county Democratic and Republican committees are elected for four-year terms in even, non-presidential years. By law, each district within a municipality elects one male and one female member.

If a vacancy occurs, the municipal chair may appoint a party member to fill the remainder of the term, but that person’s gender must correspond to the assigned gender of the open seat. That is, if there is an existing male committee member in a district with an open seat, the new appointee must be female, and vice versa.

I’m not sure why this gender discrimination is codified into law. One prominent Democratic state legislator who is happy with the status quo told me that:

“[C]hanging the regulation that requires one male and one female for each unit of representation in the county would limit the amount of diversity that we see on county committee now. There are a number of ways those wishing to get involved in their county committee can do so without holding a seat.”

It’s true that even with recent advances, women are under-represented in elected offices. But in many South Jersey counties, as many as 50 percent of committee seats remain vacant. Assigning two women to fill unoccupied seats is one way to counter this disparity and build a bench for women aspiring to higher office.

In 1997, a New Jersey Superior Court judge declared that a similar restriction (which required that county committee chair and vice chair be of opposite genders) was unconstitutional. In that decision the court wrote:

 “While it is apparent that the statute's likely intent at the time of its passage was the remedial goal of assuring equal representation in top political party leadership of the two genders, that purpose has been largely subsumed by the pronouncements of both federal and state law striking down gender-based discrimination.”

Another factor causes us to question the appropriateness of the law. As written, the law implicitly assumes that gender is static and binary. Clearly, that is not the case. Today, we understand that gender is fluid and may occupy a spectrum of identity – it is not always solely male or solely female. How this would be applied under the current law is unknown.

For these reasons, the legislature should eliminate the provisions of NJSA 19:5-3, which sets the regulation for county committees: “The county committee shall consist of one male and one female member from each unit of representation in the county.”

Let’s fix the statute and avoid expensive court challenges to an anachronistic and unconstitutional law.

Setting the Bar

When Barack Obama became President of the United States, the bar for success was quite high. After all, an African-American (or a woman for that matter) would have to work twice as hard just to stay even in the court of public opinion.

Obama’s administration was generally successful, given the stated goal of the Republican Senate and its Majority Leader to defeat him at all costs, regardless of the consequences. Health Care, the Environment, and LGBTQ rights were among the successes. Not as prominent, but probably more difficult was the reduction of the deficit and the soaring employment numbers. Of course, much of this will be undone by Trump.

So while the bar was high for Obama, where should we set the bar for Trump? Given his general incompetence, his “me first” attitude, and his coven of crazies, I will consider the Trump administration successful if by the end of it he hasn’t started World War III. But I’m not optimistic.

Why I Will Watch the Trump Coronation

There’s an effort afoot urging people to boycott the telecast of Donald Trump’s inauguration coronation on January 20. The rationale is that Trump adores attention and by keeping the television ratings low, it sends a message. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I’m not a psychologist, but it is apparent that part of Mr. Trump’s denial of reality is that he twists facts to conform with his notion that he is the center of the Universe. If the ratings are low, he will blame that on anyone but himself. Perhaps he will once again excoriate the television networks. Or come up with some other cockamamie story to justify his self-centered world view.

We are at a crossroads in the history of the Republic, and we have a chance to bear witness to one of its failings. American exceptionalism is a myth – a worthwhile goal, but devoid of reality. While we are a nation that espouses freedom and democracy, our history is clouded by numerous sins like the treatment of Native Americans, the lynching of African-Americans, treating women as second-class citizens, internment camps for Japanese-Americans, and the refusal to admit Jews trying to escape Hitler’s gas chambers. Like those sins, the flawed election of a racist egotist is something we will have to live with and work to mitigate.

Just as I was glued to my television set after the Kennedy assassination, and after the 9/11 attack, I will bear witness to the latest tragedy that is about to befall this nation. Turning off the television on Inauguration Day is akin to an ostrich sticking his head into the ground.

It won’t be pretty. My blood pressure will rise when Trump delivers what is bound to be an incoherent and scary speech. But out of anger comes strength, and I’ll be on the streets the following day supporting the We are Women march. And I’ll continue to protest, to donate to progressive causes, and to blog as long as my First Amendment rights are still intact.