On Monday a contingent of traditional marriage supporters will be rallying in Trenton to oppose the gay marriage legislation being considered in the lame duck session of the legislature. The rally is being led by New Jersey Family First.

If you wish to attend the rally here is the information:

We will begin with a briefing and prayer at 8:30 AM in the Cafe in the lower level of the annex. Ask the guards when you check in for directions to the Cafeteria.

You will need a picture ID.

Parking if you get in early (before 9:00 AM) is limited but free in the garage directly behind the State House. 

PARKING, There are other parking lots with a fee and metered parking on the street (bring quarters).

Both the Assembly and Senate will be caucusing and committee hearings are being held by both houses starting at 10 AM, 2 PM and 2:30 PM

Senate Judiciary Committee is at 10 AM. This committee will hear the homosexual marriage bill soon.

Hat tip to loyal Conservative Majority reader John Di Marco for bringing this to my attention.

One additional note: according to Steve Lonegan, Senator Kip Bateman has come out against the legislation. Senators Sean Kean, Jennifer Beck and Bill Baroni, though, still need us to persuade them.

Cross-posted at Garden State Patriot.

The Democratic legislature, along with dead man walking Jon Corzine, is about to try to pull a fast one during the lame duck session.

As has been feared, the Democrats are planning to put the controversial gay marriage issue to a vote before Chris Christie takes office. My colleagues over at Conservative Majority New Jersey (formerly Conservatives with Attitude!) Sharon Soon and Michael Illions have just posted on this.

Sharon's post mentions the following:

The New Jersey Family Policy Council has just announced that the Senate Judiciary Committee will post and vote on a gay marriage bill. The bill has been introduced by recently defeated Lieutenant Governor candidate Loretta Weinberg and openly gay Assemblyman Reed Gusciora.

The NJFPC is calling all supporters to call their legislators, notify churches about this bill, and sign the marriage petition (it can be signed repeatedly).

While Michael's post warns that 4 RINO Republicans are rumored to be in favor of this bill.

The names of the Gay Marriage enablers in the Republican Party should not surprise or shock anyone. They are Jennifer Beck, who once was on the short list to become Chris Christie’s LG pick until it rumored that they had discussed that possibility while he was still a US Attorney.

The next one is Sean Kean, one of the GOP Senator’s who voted to reappoint Liberal Judge Barry Albin, to the New Jersey Supreme Court.

Kip Bateman makes three. Kip voted to repeal the Death Penalty as an Assemblyman 2 years ago and also joined the above mentioned weasel Sean Kean in voting to reappoint to the New Jersey Supreme Court.

And finally, the last of the 4 is Bill Baroni. Baroni was the lone “Republican” vote and the deciding vote that saddled this State with Paid Family Leave Act.

If you are a fellow New Jerseyan who opposes gay marriage, then it's time to start getting on the phone and telling these legislators to vote 'NO!'

Cross-posted at Red County.

As we all know, New Jersey is in a serious fiscal crisis. Next year the state is facing a mind-boggling $8B deficit and, based on recent experience, that deficit is only likely to balloon further. This puts our new governor Mr. Christie in a real predicament - balance the budget according to state law without borrowing money and while trying to live up to his campaign promise to cut taxes.

Politically, Christie is going to be under tremendous pressure to follow through and cut taxes. The suffocating tax climate in New Jersey is one of the main reasons he was elected and property taxes were the top issue for New Jersey voters this year. Further, according to some recent polling, voters are expecting Christie to cut taxes in his first year.

The signals, though, that Christie will follow through on property tax relief so far aren't promising.

First, Christie has shown no inclination to do anything at all about the unfair school funding formula in the state. As we witnessed during the primary with Steve Lonegan, Mr. Christie does not support changing the formula to a per pupil basis which would result in a 20% cut in property taxes.

In a column last week by Paul Mulshine, he explained that Christie is not only opposed to increasing state aid to suburban towns like Toms River, but that he also opposes ending mandates like binding arbitration: 

No sooner were the votes counted than he was telling suburban voters they’re out of luck if they thought he was going to help them with their property tax bills.

That happened last week when he met with several Ocean County mayors in my old home town of Toms River. Christie scored his biggest wins in Toms River and adjacent Brick Township, which together gave him 38,000 votes toward his 100,000-vote margin of victory. The mayors of those and other towns asked him if he will deliver badly needed state aid to their towns.

"I’m not going to give Newark’s money to Toms River,’’ Christie told them.

The mayors then proceeded to tell the governor-elect that if they won’t be getting more state aid, then at least they need to be relieved of state mandates. The most costly such mandate is binding arbitration of labor disputes. The arbitrators routinely award raises that can add up to double the current cap on tax hikes, which is 4 percent.

I discussed this yesterday with Manchester Township Mayor Michael Fressola, who was at the meeting. Fressola said the police in his town now earn an average of $94,000. In the absence of state aid, homeowners have to pick up that tab.

"That’s why we were asking him to get rid of a lot of the mandates," said Fressola. "That would in effect be the same as more state aid."

It would indeed, but McGreevey’s response to the mayors was: "I can’t see eliminating binding arbitration."

I’m sorry, did I say "McGreevey"? I meant "Christie." Pro-taxpayer before the election, pro-union afterward. It’s hard to tell the two apart.

This leaves the property tax gimmick. Christie won't be able to deliver on his promise to first, restore, then increase the rebates without borrowing or increasing the income tax which funds the rebates. Again, either more debt and fiscal peril or, on the other hand, broken campaign promises.

Herein lies the problem that so many conservatives had with Mr. Christie throughout the campaign. Yes, there was a lack of specifics, but there was also a more overriding doubt that he would have the political will and courage to address the serious structural problems with the budget.

Today, Mr. Christie is meeting with his transition team to discuss taxes. It will be interesting to see what other signals come from this meeting. Will he show any more willingness than he has to date to address the aforementioned issues? Or will we hear more generalities and platitudes?

For Mr. Christie's sake I hope it is the former and not the latter. For if he ultimately fails to deliver on real property tax relief I believe it will to his own political peril. The people who voted for Mr. Christie are expecting no less and they will surely hold him accountable four years from now.  

The time is now for bold leadership on this issue and the state's finances in general - not timidity and sleight of hand.

[ON EDIT] And on cue: NJ Budget May Be Worse Than Thought: Christie

Cross-posted at Garden State Patriot.

According to a Pew Research study, New Jersey is one of ten states headed for a California-esque catastrophe. The study uses several measurements to arrive at their conclusion. This includes factors such as change in revenue, budget gap, unemployment rate and foreclosure rates.

California’s financial problems are in a league of their own. But the same pressures that drove the Golden State toward fiscal disaster are wreaking havoc in a number of states, with potentially damaging consequences for the entire country.

This examination by the Pew Center on the States looks closely at nine states, in addition to California, that are particularly affected by the recession. All of California’s neighbors–Arizona, Nevada and Oregon–and fellow Sun Belt state Florida were severely hit by the bursting housing bubble, landing them on Pew’s list of states facing fiscal difficulties similar to California’s. A Midwestern cluster of states comprising Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin emerged, too, as did the Northeastern states of New Jersey and Rhode Island.

"Beyond California: States in Fiscal Peril" makes clear that the recession severely impacted states from different geographic regions with different types of economies, tax structures and political leanings.

Scoring the States

The Pew Center on the States compiled its list by scoring all 50 states according to six measurable factors that contributed to California’s ongoing fiscal woes, using the best available data as of July 31, 2009. The state profiles in this report go beyond the data to give a fuller picture of the recession’s deep and pervasive effects on states’ financial and economic well-being. Read more about methodology for "Beyond California." 

Certainly, this comes as no surprise to any of us here in the Garden State, but it does serve to reinforce the severity of what we face. The picture simply isn't pretty - and our new governor will certainly have his hands full come January.

For more information on the Pew study, click the links below.

• Download the report. (Adobe PDF)
• Download the executive summary. (Adobe PDF)
• Download the 50-state scorecard. (Adobe PDF)
• Beyond California full report (Adobe PDF)

Cross-posted at Red County and Conservatives with Attitude!

Yesterday I posted about which senators to target in the upcoming healthcare showdown. In addition, I mentioned that there were two State Work Periods coming up which, presumably, will mean that our senators will be back in New Jersey and available to their constituents.

This prompted me today to call Senator Lautenberg's and Senator Menendez' offices to see what their schedule and agenda was for these two breaks. Their answer? Neither office knows what the senators are doing. They don't know if they are going to be in New Jersey, let alone if they have any events scheduled. Considering that the first break begins tomorrow, this seems a little suspicious to me (albeit not surprising). 

So, here we are with one of the most serious and important pieces of legislation to come before the Senate in our lifetimes and our two senators are MIA. They have no known plans for giving the people they represent a chance to speak with them about an issue that will impact their very lives before a potential vote in December. For all I know they will be on their way to St. Bart's to console their fallen comrade, Governor Corzine.

Frankly, I think it's time our two senators stopped hiding behind their desks. It's time both of them showed some guts and faced their constituents.

Cross-posted at Garden State Patriot.

Back in August, when town hall meetings were at a fever pitch, I attended three of Rothman's 'listening sessions.' While Rothman deserved credit for taking the heat at that time, it was evident that he had no intention of ever changing his mind and voting the will of his constituents despite his rhetoric to the contrary. I said as much here.

Among the many things Rothman said at the time was that he would not vote for a bill that rationed care, included abortion or covered illegal immigrants. Mark Kalinowski of the North Jersey Tea Party Group details this in his Facebook post today:

At his August 10th town hall meeting in North Arlington, Democratic Congressman Steve Rothman told the citizens assembled that he would not vote for any bill that would lead to rationing of medical care. (Video of him saying so is located on YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VradLPeiynQ) Last night, bill HR 3962 came up for vote. One of the core purposes of this bill -- the remarks of the ignorant and the power-hungry notwithstanding -- is to have the federal government take over medical care. Whenever this anti-free market approach has been tried by other governments around the world, it has always led to rationing. In fact, the people who wrote this bill understand this, because they removed the following sentence outlawing rationing from a similar bill (HR 3200) weeks ago: "In developing such recommendations, the Committee shall take into account innovation in health care and ensure that essential benefits coverage does not lead to rationing of health care." (This language was not added back into HR 3962.) Unfortunately, there are a lot of horrible politicians out there, and firmly among them is the thoroughly dishonest Steve Rothman. Voters in his district have just found out in a most spectacular, obvious way that Rothman's word is no good. (Politicians like Rothman who are so willing to lie to themselves should never be trusted.) For the harm Rothman has caused to our country and our Constitution, for his willingness to violate our unalienable moral rights (such as our right to refrain from paying for other people's health insurance), and for his stunning betrayal of his constituents, Rothman must be voted out of office in 2010.

Note #1: The source for the quote of the June draft of HR 3200 comes from: http://theblogprof.blogspot.com/2009/11/change-prohibition-against-rationing.html

Note #2: I predicted Rothman's would go back on his word; for example see this from the August 16th Bergen County Record: http://www.northjersey.com/news/opinions/letters/The_debate_on_health_care_reform.html?c=y&page=3

Note #3: The final roll call for the November 7, 2009 vote on HR 3200 can be found here: http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2009/roll887.xml. If your congressman or congresswoman voted for this move toward socialized medicine, let's vote him or her out of office too!

Mark is correct. With yesterday's vote, Rothman has now gone on record as holding his constituent's in contempt as well as going back on his word. Like every other representative in Congress who voted for government-run healthcare, he has also violated the oath he took to uphold the constitution. 

Mr. Rothman is no longer worthy of the office he currently holds. As a resident in his district, I will personally do everything in my power to make sure that the vote he cast last night is one of his last. And I'm sure I will not be alone in that endeavor.

Cross-posted at Garden State Patriot.