Good for Jack!

In one of today’s newspapers, New Jersey State Assemblyman, Jack Ciattarelli said, “I have heard that there’s conversations about linking staff salary increases to the legal ads bill.  It’s disturbing and the legislative leadership should be doing everything possible to get that genie back in the bottle . . .. It’s the worst kind of horse trading, and I want nothing of it.”

How refreshing it is that this man has remained true to the same solid ethics that he had when I first came across him years ago when he was a Somerset County Freeholder.

 

It was then that I saw him in action when, against strong opposing pressure, he cast a losing vote concerning the fate of the Somerset County Parks Commission.

Today, the New Jersey Legislature will prostitute itself if it passes a bill that combines raising the salaries of Legislative staff, judges and other public servants while simultaneously eliminating a provision of the Ethics Law which prohibits New Jersey governors from earning income from book deals while still in office.

 

If passed by the Legislature and signed into law by the governor, that bill will also “repeal a law that requires local and county officials to publish legal notices in printed newspapers.”

The bill is being ramrodded though the Legislature which will vote on it today.  It is being pushed through in just a week’s time.

The linkages and timing in this bill smell as badly as a rotten fish thrown on the doorstep of public trust and of responsible journalism.