First it was the NJ Governor Codey’s office handing out Homeland Security grants based on which towns voted Democrat…
Then, it was the FBI problems of US Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ), making NJ Dems thinking about “political switcheroo” again….
And now the powerful NJ Senate Budget Chairman shows serious symptoms of Democratus Corruptionitis…. (hat tip: PatriotPartner!)
A powerful southern New Jersey politician was paid for a no-work job at a scandal-ridden state university while helping the school garner millions of dollars in new state funding, according to a report released Monday.
The University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey paid state Sen. Wayne Bryant, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, $35,000 a year “to lobby himself in his capacity of state senator,” according to the report of a federal monitor who had investigated the school’s finances.
The report said all Bryant appeared to do at the university’s School of Osteopathic Medicine was show up for three hours most Tuesdays to read newspapers.
I do believe the continuing collapse of the NJ Dems from top to bottom is a leading political indicator for November 7, 2006.
-Bruce (GayPatriot)
It’s good to see such rampant corruption revealed, especially throughout an entire state. But enough about Ohio…
Corrupt DEMs in New Jersey, while it needs to be addressed, certainly rates as a dog bites man type of story.
As a NJ native for most of my life, corruption is rampant in NJ. This may be a non-story to many people outside of NJ, but it is pretty big here. But unlike GP appears to suggest, it is not just the Democrats. At least in my county, it was the Republicans that did most of the dirty work. Now that the county has turned from exclusively Republican to exclusively Democrat in the past 10-15 years, I expect to see more Democratic corruption. Yes, it is a big problem, and governors from both parties say they promise that the crap is going to stop. But it hasn’t, and none of them frankly really even tried to stop it. I’m hoping that the latest budget disgrace would put a stop to it, but I’m not holding my breath.
As a NJ resident also, you primarily judge a NJ politician by “how corrupt”, not “if” he’s corrupt…and this extends down to the county and even school board levels. And the result is amazingly low voter turnout levels.
The annual electional calendar is full of scattered dates for State, local, abd school board elections and primaries. In my own home town, the city commissioners are routinely elected individually with a 40%-plurality from a voter turnout of approx. 14% of the registered-electorate…which is about 60% of the eligible voter-base based on the recent census. That’s means they were voted-for by 7% of the registered voters, and about 5% of the actual eligible adult residents. The school board election…which is on a separate date and only from 2pm-8pm…is lucky to get a 7% turnout. ….All of which is done on a strictly non-partisan-basis. Party-politics starts at the County-level, and here is strictly based on the old-boy/(girl) system of who you know on the nominating committee.
One unwlecome side-effect from the “transparency” disclosure laws is that well-qualified people in the private sector are turned-off by the odious and intrusive public disclosure and filing requirements. This has resulted in most elected-officials being middle-class public-sector workers or their spouses…and the cycle feeds on itself. Professionals and business-types…or their spouses…get discouraged and tuned-off by the expensive, time-consuming and intrusive disclousers just to be on a library committee or school board. My best friend who sat on his local school board declined re-election when it reached the point where it cost him over $10,000 in legal and accounting fees just to do the annual filing….plus the annual complaints from his business-partners that he was disclosing privildged business information that their competitors could then send a lawyer to read under the “Open Records” laws. Now, every member of that board is the spouse of a teacher….in that district….and they ran uncontested.
The last school board budget, that establishes the tax-rates for the next three years, was approved by less than %5 of the registered voters….yet their school board residential real-estate taxes are their biggest tax-bite…for many more than even their Federal income taxes. And if a budget is rejeted by the voters two-years in a row, the State simply overrides the voters and re-imposses the failed-budget anyway as a State Mandate….
Voter Apathy?
Why do you ask?……..
Corruption in NJ is a just a question of “how much”?
Here in Michigan, we leave the corruption to inner city Democrat politicians like Detroit’s Kilpatrick or Flint’s Williamson or a few other corrupted vermin. The Detroit school district is so corrupt, they can’t even account for over $680m of a $2b bond issue they floated a few years ago… wow. And for all that corruption we get unsafe streets, drug-infested schools, no snow plows, inefficient govt, 3x the regular cost of doing business, high taxes, fleeing residents and a drain on outstate coffers.
I think we should hyphenate the word Democrat and tack on “corrupt” at the front. What a sorry state of affairs for a party that promises opportunity for inner city residents.
There are less than 60 days til the fall election. Is it too late for the NJ Dems to replace Sen. Menendez with a more viable candidate? Ole Frank Lautenberg is already serving. And afterall they didn’t find
$100, 000 in Sen. Menendez’ freezer did they? BTW this NJ race turning for the republicans started the wave of good news for Republicans for the fall. A couple weeks ago, others were predicting gasoline at $2.20 by election day. It’s $2.29 here today in central Pennsylvania. Such a sunny day. God is great.
Gene in PA writes: “God is great.”
Yes and She is a fiscally conservative Republican.
Latest Quinnipiac poll shows Kean overtaking Menendez. Check it out here:
http://www.townhall.com/News/NewsArticle.aspx?ContentGuid=9293f50f-6fb5-4b73-a45d-59ded85741aa
Regards,
Peter H.
Boy,for the state that gave us McCreevy… need anything more be said? That guy will be hurting the gay movement, the gay agenda, domestic partners and New Jersey for years to come.
What an immoral, self-serving reprobate. (I’m not talking about AndieSullivan here).