Free Speech In A Time Of Authoritarian Politics
Posted on August 14, 2012, 8:00 PM
Last week, we examined the state of degradation that now besets that most representative branch of New Jersey’s government – the Legislature. In doing so, we described the fear among both Republicans and Democrats:
The New Jersey Legislature has now reached the point at which it must even look on itself as a running joke. Think of it! Talented men and women who run for office filled with ideas – an office for which they have to beg for support from political organizations, beg for money from special interests, and then beg for votes from their neighbors – only to find that they have landed a $49,000-a-year job with few perks and little authority. A junior staff member in the Executive Branch outranks a legislator – and earns a lot more.
On the Republican side, junior staffers regularly invade the caucus to watch omnipresent and report back on the slightest divergence from the party line. They are the carrion crows of a dead caucus, picking at the slightest movement and squawking loudly. The “elected representatives of the people” fear them, as they fear the dreaded call to the “front office” for some discipline.
But the Democrats are even worse. The leadership of the Assembly is cut and carved up by a cabal of party bosses – with the top jobs going to those least likely to exhibit an independent thought. So the Assembly Speakership goes to an administrative assistant working in the office of the underboss of the North Jersey Democrat “family” – one of the three “families” who run New Jersey politics.
The bosses collect legislators like gems and flaunt their opulent control over the “people’s chambers”. For instance, if this underboss needs to flex a little muscle over the state budget, there is a State Senator working in his office who serves on the Budget and Appropriations Committee.
https://conservativenewjersey.com/free-speech-in-a-time-of-authoritarian-politics