As New Jerseyians, we are coming close to an extremely important election in our state’s history. I am not talking about the presidential election in which our flawed Senator “Spartacus” Cory Booker is trying to claim more than 2% of the Democratic base’s support and stun the world with a nomination. I am referencing the 2019 New Jersey midterm election in which all 80 of our state’s General Assembly seats are up for grabs.
On Nov. 5, people around our state will most likely forget that there is even an election this year because there are no true big name items on the ticket. There is no president, governor or senator, there is only assembly person, which I’ll concede is not the sexiest of titles, but it is arguably the most important.
All New Jerseyians remember the now infamous photo from the summer of 2017 of then-Governor Chris Christie sitting on the beach on Fourth of July weekend after closing down the beaches for the public. It was some terrible optics on the part of our governor, I will agree to that, but what many of us do not know is that it really was not Governor Christie’s fault at all.
That summer, the Democrats controlled our state legislature as they have for the past 17 years, and yet they were still in the thrusts of a budget battle that would eventually claim victim, the states busiest weekend of the year.
Despite having a 52-28 supermajority in the General Assembly and a 24-16 majority in the State Senate, the Democrats could not get a budget to the Governor’s desk due to fighting within their own party. This forced the government to shut down and Governor Christie to close the beaches until the children in Trenton could work out their differences.
Unfortunately, due to bias in the media, we did not hear this side of the story. We did not hear that it was the in-aptitude of our Democratic party leaders for why our beloved beaches were shut down, and it is due to that continued in-aptitude that we still cannot get popular measures such as the decriminalization of marijuana passed, despite them having control of all three houses in our state government. Quite simply the Democrats have controlled our legislature for 17 years and have continued to endlessly fail us.
The answer to our problems as a state is crystal clear. We have two parties for a reason. When one is failing, the other should be allowed to fix those problems.
New Jersey needs a change, our businesses and students are leaving, our future is fleeing our state, and that change can come in November of this year.
In a June op-ed, Chairman of the New Jersey GOP Doug Stienhardt said we need change.
“Single party rule is failing New Jersey… give Republicans a chance… split control of Trenton and put people in charge who will challenge the status quo and offer a conservative check and balance to the current, progressive stalemate. I promise you, we can’t do worse,” Stienhardt said.
Vote Republican, vote to fix New Jersey and vote to bring our beloved state back from the brink of death.
