“New Jersey Home Rule Is An Invitation for Corruption”
Steve Adubato, Ph.D.
CBS 2 Political Analyst

What is especially galling about the New Jersey political corruption scandal is that the elected and appointed officials who got nabbed in this FBI sting— allegedly taking cash in envelopes in return for special treatment and favors— is that it was all so predictable. 

It was predictable because former US Attorney Chris Christie, who is the Republican candidate for Governor and New Jersey’s leading crime fighter, told municipal officials just two years ago at an Atlantic City convention that if someone offered you money in an envelope, and it was not your mother, it was probably the FBI.  Amazingly, many of the municipal officials who got snared allegedly taking the money on video and audiotape were in the audience when Christie delivered his unequivocal warning. 

Are New Jersey politicians more corrupt than those in other states?  I don’t buy it; there’s just a culture here that exudes corruption.  It’s called “home rule”.  We have 611 school districts, 566 municipalities, county government, water commissions, zoning boards, planning boards, not to mention a state bureaucracy.  You are talking about tens of thousands of elected or appointed officials from every level of government, all of whom have the ability to grease the wheels of the process.  Some get paid very little, while others don’t get paid at all.  They are “volunteers.”  What they DO have is the power and the ability to move the governmental process along for a “price.”

According to sources in the US Attorney’s office, it was easy.  It was predictable.  So what’s the answer?  Of course we have to attract better and more honest people into government.  But the other thing we need to do is mandate and enforce smaller municipal governments to merge into larger ones.  We need to cut the number of elected and appointed officials in the next year.  There are just too many of them. Too many “opportunities” and not enough oversight.  It just doesn’t make sense to have so many governmental jurisdictions, and until New Jersey voters and those who make the laws in the state deal with this problem head on, New Jersey will continue to be ripe for corruption. 

Getting rid of home rule won’t solve the corruption problem, but no one thing will.  Yet, taking this action will be a major step in restoring some sanity in how New Jersey governs itself. 

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