BAYONNE AND BEYOND – Daniel Beckelman, who is running as a Republican in the 31st District that includes Bayonne and southern Jersey City, said this week that he supports elections for judges in New Jersey.
Saying the New Jersey Supreme Court’s rulings equate to legislating – at the cost of billions of dollars to taxpayers – Beckelman is joining several other conservative leaders including State Sen. Michael Doherty, Assembly Members Alison McHose and Michael Patrick Carroll, and former Bogota Mayor Steve Lonegan to change the way judges are named.
“Even in urban districts such as mine, voters are fed up with judicial over-reach according to a recent poll,” he said. “They are increasingly skeptical of arbitrary decisions like Abbott, as they are realizing that these decisions are not allowing reform in our communities, and instead are mandating spending billions more than is needed while achieving few tangible results.”
This comes at a time when the Supreme Court ruled again that some urban school districts – called Abbott Districts – are underfunded, failing to meet the state constitutional requirement that students in public schools get an equal education. The ruling was the latest in a series of rulings that evolved out of lawsuit brought in the 1970s that claimed the suburban districts had an unfair material advantage over urban school districts because urban districts usually had financial and other hardships suburban schools lacked. The suit also claimed the wealthier communities were able to provide a better educational opportunity to their urban counterparts, and the Supreme Court in a number of rulings ordered the state to correct the disparity, usually be requiring the state to give more in aid to Abbott districts.
Republican Gov. Christopher Christie’s efforts to make changes in school funding were recently frustrated by the latest ruling by the state Supreme Court, sparking outrage among conservatives.
“Even more people, across party lines, believe we need to have a choice in who our Supreme Court judges are,” Beckelman said. “With the challenges we face, the time has come for change. This is an issue where we need to reflect where public sentiment is. New Jersey cannot afford another lost decade of high taxes and weak growth. Having a Supreme Court that is accountable to the public will be one more way we can be a state that is friendlier to taxpayers and businesses.”