A Couple of Sure Bets

NJ Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli (R), left,  and
NJ Senator Christopher ‘Kip’ Bateman (R) chat,
as they await the arrival of Governor Chris Christie
for a Town Meeting held at the Raritan Valley Community
 College on April 11, 2013

In New Jersey on this Election Day there are, as always, seats that the incumbents are sure to retain.  Two of those are currently held by State Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli (R) and State Senator Christopher ‘Kip’ Bateman in Legislative District 16. 

I was unable to vote on their behalf today, because I find myself in another district.  (If you want to get an idea of how the political sausage is made, check out this official color map of New Jersey’s hacked up districts.)  But I digress.

Were these two public servants within my district, they would have had my votes.  Bateman has held progressively responsive positions in the New Jersey Legislature for almost twenty years.  He is one of the sons of former NJ Senate President Raymond Bateman who was also a contender for the NJ Governorship in 1977.

Jack Ciattarelli, a Man for Our Time

Politics can be a brutally tough game. In order to get anything done, an elected official has to work with a team of peers. It’s even tougher when, in his or her heart of hearts, a politician veers away from the group on a particular topic and acts upon insights that some colleagues may not possess or do not have the will to act upon.

That is why I think that it would have been easy for Jack Ciattarelli, one of five people on the Somerset County Board of Chosen Freeholders, to have voted with the rest of the freeholders in maintaining 15 paid holidays for county employees in 2010.

Instead, he was the sole dissenter claiming, as reported by Martin C. Bricketto in the Courier News on Monday, that, “…our holiday schedule is excessive,” two more than even State of New Jersey gets.