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The New York Times
In New Jersey,
Corruption May Alter Politics.
Or Not.
A state where voters
are calloused about government scandal.
By JEREMY W. PETERS,
nytimes.com on the Web, October 3, 2007
PASSAIC, N.J., Sept. 27 — This
may be a year of milestones for the New Jersey Legislature. More women are
on the ballot than ever before, and political observers say there could be more
turnover in the State House than in a decade.
But this election year also bears a darker badge: the number of
legislators — all Democrats — who are facing criminal charges.
Two state assemblymen, Alfred E. Steele of Paterson and Mims Hackett Jr. of
Orange, resigned after they were arrested Sept. 6 on corruption charges.
Two state senators, Wayne R. Bryant of Camden and Sharpe James of Newark, are
awaiting trial on corruption charges. A third, Joseph Coniglio, has been
named a target of a federal investigation. None of the three senators are
seeking re-election.
This could be the year that corruption dominates the political debate and
Republicans wrest seats from the Democrats, who have controlled both houses of
the Legislature since 2004. But political experts say they do not see that
happening, not in a state where Democrats dominate the Legislature and occupy
the governor’s office and both United States Senate seats. And not in a
state where voters have grown calloused about government corruption.
“The Republicans have tried to make ethics the issue, but it’s as though the
voters are saying, ‘Yeah, we know,’” Ingrid W. Reed, an analyst at the Eagleton
Institute of Politics at Rutgers University, said in an interview last week.
As Ms. Reed put it, “It’s the continuing saga of New Jersey.”
Being calloused to corruption, however, is not the same as being tolerant of it,
political analysts said.
"It’s more like you get numb to it," said Jennifer E. Duffy, an analyst for the
nonpartisan Cook Political Report. “Voters don’t think it’s O.K.
They don’t like it, but they also sort of believe it’s kind of the way things
are.”
In Passaic, the gritty, rough-and-tumble North Jersey community where Mr.
Steele, who was a county undersheriff; the mayor; and two other city officials
were charged in a bribery scheme last month, few seemed to be indifferent to the
accusations.
“I don’t take that in stride. No, no,” said Al Odom, 68, a retired
mechanic who on a recent afternoon was working on his 1979 Lincoln Continental.
But does he expect corruption every now and then among elected officials?
“Yeah,” he sighed. “It’s the nature of the beast.”
Like many New Jersey voters, Mr. Odom, a Democrat, said he was more concerned
with issues like property tax reform. The scandals among Democrats, he
said, were not shaking his party loyalty.
Other voters apparently share his view. A recent Quinnipiac University
poll found that 54 percent of registered New Jersey voters said they were not
more likely to vote for a Republican despite the recent arrests of Democrats
across the state. Yet in the same poll, 88 percent said they believed
government corruption was a very serious or somewhat serious problem.
Sensing this disenchantment, Republicans want to tap into it.
“What we’ve done is we’ve said the process is broken, the government is broken,”
said Tom Wilson, the Republican State Committee chairman. “Democrats claim
that this was the isolated action of a few bad actors. That rings false.”
But Mr. Wilson and the Republicans ran up against swift efforts by the
Democratic leadership to blunt the criticism that they were tolerating
corruption. Immediately after Assemblyman Hackett, who is also the mayor
of Orange, and Assemblyman Steele were charged, they took the advice of Gov. Jon
S. Corzine and the state Democratic chairman, Joseph P. Cryan, and resigned from
the Legislature.
Democrats seem to have been successful in rebuffing criticism over the accused
state senators because none are seeking re-election. Mr. James, a former
mayor of Newark, was charged with billing personal expenses, including vacations
to Martha’s Vineyard and Brazil, to the city. Senator Bryant, the deputy
majority leader in the Senate, is accused of holding a $37,000-a-year “no-show”
job at a state medical school. Mr. Coniglio, chairman of the Senate State
Government Committee, has been notified that he is the subject of a federal
investigation, but he has not been charged.
“To make hay out of an issue like this, the Republicans need to point out
targets,” said David P. Rebovich, managing director of the Rider University
Institute for New Jersey Politics. “But Sharpe James and Wayne Bryant
aren’t going to run. The two assemblymen have resigned, so who do
Republicans want to point at?”
In a fortunate twist for Democrats, the legislators who have been charged come
from heavily Democratic districts, another factor that has complicated
Republican efforts to make an issue of corruption. In fact, in Mr.
Steele’s district and Mr. Hackett’s, Republicans are not running a full slate of
candidates to compete with the Democrats.
For Republicans, the issue is more than having the perceived ethical upper hand.
They lack the campaign funds that could give them a statewide platform on radio
and television.
“We are at a financial disadvantage,” said Leonard Lance, the Senate minority
leader. “And that is due almost exclusively to the fact that we are in the
minority.”
But even if Republicans had the money to blanket the state with ads that faulted
the Democrats for ethical lapses, it is unclear that voters trust either party
to reform the system.
“Citizens are not so sure either party will dramatically change the state of
politics here,” Mr. Rebovich said.
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