Lowman S. Henry

Wanted for Stealing Democracy:
The New Jersey Supreme Court

By Lowman S. Henry

Deborah T. Poritz
James H. Coleman, Jr.
Peter G. Verniero
Virginia Long
Jaynee LaVecchia
James R. Zassali
Barry T. Albin

They're America's newest black robed bandits, members of New Jersey's Supreme Court who recently drove the get-away car as the Democrat Party stole the rule of law from the good citizens of the Garden State.

For months, actually for years, U.S. Senator Robert G. Torricelli, Democrat of New Jersey, nicknamed "the torch" has been going down in flames. An individual completely devoid of an ethical compass, Torricelli was consumed by greed, and the inability to separate his personal best interests from the best interests of the people he was elected to serve.

Democrat party leaders, both nationally and in New Jersey, stood by their man until late September when it became obvious that his continued candidacy would cause them to lose his pivotal seat to a nearly unknown Republican, Douglas Forrester. With control of the U.S. Senate likely to be decided by one vote or less, the Democrats took what should have been a losing gamble.

Although a New Jersey law, passed by a majority of both houses of the New Jersey legislature and duly signed into law by the state's governor, clearly prohibited replacing a candidate on the ballot less than 51 days before a general election, Democrats sought to violate that law and substitute another candidate for the tarnished Torricelli.

Acting as though they actually had a right to select another candidate, Democrat leaders drafted former U.S. Senator Frank R. Lautenberg as their ninth inning replacement candidate. They were undeterred by the fact their actions ran counter to the prevailing law of their state.

Enter the New Jersey Supreme Court.

Seven justices who swore to uphold the law.

They didn't.

The justices have disgraced themselves in the eyes of their countrymen as surely as the members of the Florida Supreme Court did in a more high-profile election controversy nearly two years ago. That time, though, there was a compelling national interest for the U.S. Supreme Court to enter the fray and save democracy. Absent that compelling interest, the nation's high court opted to pass on the New Jersey case.

And so it stands.

The New Jersey Supreme Court instead of upholding the law, rewrote the law. It seems in New Jersey the legislature and the governor have been rendered meaningless and the state is now being governed by judicial fiat. When the law stands in the way of what the prevailing political powers want to see happen, it is simply overturned and ignored.

All of this is good news for the state of Florida. They are no longer the nation's reigning political joke. Just like the newly crowned Miss America, the tiara of atrocious jurisprudence has been passed.

I think limerickist Al Bienstock said it best with this little ditty:

(Lowman S. Henry is Chairman & CEO of the Lincoln Institute of Public Opinion Research, Inc.
His Keystone Commentaries are aired statewide on Lincoln Radio Journal.)