Governor Mikie Sherrill signed legislation requiring New Jersey data centers to report their water and energy usage to the Board of Public Utilities.

Under S3379, data-center operators must disclose information including total energy consumption, energy used for cooling and information-technology equipment, peak daily water usage, water sources, and on-site and backup power supplies. The information is intended to give state regulators and, in summarized form, the public—a clearer picture of the enormous resource demands associated with these facilities.

This is not a ban on data centers or moratorium, despite public calls for such.

It also does not prevent artificial-intelligence companies from investing in New Jersey.

At its core, it requires information as a step toward accountability.

And when the New Jersey State Senate overwhelmingly required data centers to provide that information, LD24 Senator Parker Space voted NO.

The Wrong Vote at the Wrong Time

Space’s opposition was not incidental.

On February 12, S3379 came before the Senate Environment and Energy Committee—the committee on which Space serves.

Three senators voted yes.

One senator voted NO.

PARKER SPACE.

The bill nevertheless advanced and subsequently passed the full Senate by a vote of 34–2, with Space again voting against it. After Assembly amendments, the measure returned to the Senate on June 30, where Space again recorded a NO vote on final passage.

Now it is law.

The question for residents of Legislative District 24 should be simple:

Why?

Why would our state senator oppose requiring some of the largest prospective consumers of electricity and water in New Jersey to tell regulators how much they are actually consuming?

And why would the senator representing Northwest New Jersey take that position now?

And That Was Not Space’s Only NO Vote

There was another important data-center vote.

The Legislature also considered S4390, the “End Data Center Tax Credits Act.” New Jersey’s Next New Jersey Program had authorized up to $500 million in tax credits for qualifying artificial-intelligence and data-center projects. After $250 million had already been awarded, S4390 eliminated the remaining $250 million in available tax-credit capacity.

The practical effect was straightforward: New Jersey would no longer offer that remaining $250 million as a taxpayer-funded financial incentive for additional qualifying projects. Removing that incentive reduced one of the financial benefits available to developers considering qualifying data-center projects in New Jersey.

The Senate passed the measure overwhelmingly, 35–4.

Parker Space voted NO.

So, consider the two votes together.

When the Senate sought to require data centers to disclose how much electricity and water they consume, Space voted NO.

When the Senate sought to eliminate another $250 million in taxpayer-funded incentives for qualifying AI and data-center projects, Space voted NO again.

This Is Not an Abstract Debate in Sussex County

For Sussex County residents, data centers are not something happening somewhere else.

Andover Township has been at the center of one of New Jersey’s most contentious data-center fights. A developer seeking to construct a facility on roughly 100 acres of the former airport property sued the township after local officials reversed course and adopted a prohibition on data centers following intense public opposition.

Nor is electricity an abstract issue here.

Residents of Northwest New Jersey know what unreliable electric service feels like. They have experienced the outages, watched food spoil, operated generators, worried about elderly relatives, lost work time and wondered why in one of the most expensive states in America keeping the lights on is becoming a luxury.

Now add another question:

What happens when enormous new electricity users are added to an already stressed system?

Elected officials should be asking hard questions before decisions are made:

How much electricity will they consume?

Where will that electricity come from?

What infrastructure will be necessary to serve them?

Who pays for that infrastructure?

Could residential customers end up bearing additional costs?

What happens during periods of peak demand?

How much water will these facilities require?

And what protections will communities receive in return?

Those are not anti-business questions.

They are responsible-government questions.

Innovation and Accountability Are Not Opposites

Sherrill has framed her data-center policy around the proposition that New Jersey does not have to choose between technological development and accountability.

On that basic principle, she may be right.

New Jersey should welcome investment, innovation and good-paying jobs.

However, economic development cannot mean writing a blank check and hoping everything works out later. Because when “hope” becomes government policy, taxpayers too often become the backup plan.

In addition to the reporting requirement, the administration has proposed measures intended to make large data centers bear more of the costs associated with their electricity demands and has issued guidance to help municipalities negotiate community-benefits agreements with developers.

Whether those agreements ultimately protect local taxpayers and communities will depend heavily on what municipalities negotiate—and whether they have the information and expertise necessary to negotiate effectively.

However, there are legitimate debates about whether those measures go far enough. Environmental organizations are already arguing that reporting requirements are insufficient and calling for a statewide moratorium. Sherrill has rejected that approach.

Fine.

Then let us have that debate.

But it is difficult to have an intelligent debate without information.

And that is what makes Space’s vote so difficult to understand.

Leadership Means Asking Before, Not Explaining After

This is where Northwest New Jersey needs a different approach to representation.

Our region should not have to wait until electric bills increase, another major outage occurs, infrastructure becomes overwhelmed, or a controversial development application lands before a local planning board before our elected officials become interested.

Leadership is anticipatory.

It identifies problems before they become crises.

It asks questions before decisions become irreversible.

And when government does not have enough information to make a responsible decision, leadership demands the information.

That principle did not begin with data centers.

Following the widespread and prolonged power outages that struck New Jersey this summer, the New Jersey Property Taxpayers Coalition developed a municipal resolution calling for a comprehensive, independent investigation and performance audit of New Jersey’s electric utilities. The resolution is being shared with governing bodies all throughout New Jersey. Many have already adopted it.

The resolution calls for an examination of utility reliability, outage frequency and restoration times; infrastructure investments and maintenance; vegetation management; emergency preparedness; staffing and customer communications; and whether existing regulatory oversight and accountability measures are adequately protecting New Jersey ratepayers.

Most importantly, it does not simply call for another government report to sit on a shelf. It calls for an Action Plan, compliance timeframes, recommended reforms and the public release of findings and corrective actions. It also asks the Division of Rate Counsel to examine whether New Jersey ratepayers are actually receiving the level of reliability they should reasonably expect for the rates and infrastructure investments they are required to pay.

The principle is straightforward: ratepayers should know what they are paying for, whether it is working, and what will be done when it is not.

Data centers make those questions even more urgent.

That is the type of accountability that Northwest New Jersey deserves.

I am not opposed to useful technology.

I am not opposed to responsible economic development.

And I am certainly not opposed to bringing new investment and jobs into our region, which is sorely needed.

But I am opposed to asking families and businesses to absorb the consequences of decisions made without first demanding the critical information necessary to understand those consequences.

Before enormous new loads are added to our electric grid, we should know what those loads are and what that demand could mean for reliability and rates.

Before communities commit scarce water resources, we should know how much will be consumed and what that consumption could mean for the community.

Before ratepayers are potentially asked to finance new infrastructure, we should know who benefits and who pays.

And before elected officials vote no on obtaining that information, they should explain why.

Then Let Us Have The Conversation

The utilities resolution was one step. The next step is bringing the conversation directly to the public.

That is precisely why the New Jersey Property Taxpayers Coalition will be bringing this discussion directly to Northwest New Jersey.

That is precisely why the New Jersey Property Taxpayers Coalition will host Power Outages and Data Centers: A Public Forum on October 6, 2026 from 7pm to 9pm at the Sussex County Community College.

We are bringing together residents, energy experts, public officials, utility representatives and others who can help answer the questions that increasingly affect every household and business in our region.

This is something government should be doing much more often:

Asking questions, presenting information, listening to the public and demanding answers.

Because Northwest New Jersey should have a voice in determining what its energy future looks like.

And residents should not discover the consequences after the decisions have already been made.

A Choice in Leadership

There is a larger issue here than one bill.

Parker Space had a choice.

When legislation came before his committee requiring data centers to disclose their energy and water consumption, he voted NO.

When the measure reached the Senate, he voted NO again.

He should have voted YES. The people he represents deserved nothing less. But that is what they always seem to get—Less.

Not because every data center is automatically bad.

Not because New Jersey should reject technological development or economic investment.

But because you cannot protect taxpayers, ratepayers and communities with information you refuse to collect.

That is how our district should be represented.

On October 6, rather than simply telling Northwest New Jersey what to think about data centers, we are going to bring people together and start asking the questions that should have been asked all along.

Northwest New Jersey has been left in the dark too many times—both literally and politically—thanks to our current leadership.

It is time to shed some light on that darkness—and bring a different kind of leadership to LD24.

This week, conservative commentator Tomi Lahren issued a warning to her own party that Republicans would be wise to take seriously.

The GOP, she warned, risks making with young women the same mistake Democrats made with young men.

“If we totally alienate young women we will not win elections,” Lahren said.

Her larger point was hardly radical.

Republicans cannot simultaneously tell women that they want their votes while tolerating a political culture that mocks their ambitions, diminishes their accomplishments or treats them as intellectually or socially inferior.

Lahren specifically warned conservatives that making fun of “girl bosses” and telling women they should not value their careers might generate applause in certain corners of the internet, but it also alienates women who might otherwise vote Republican.

“We have to find a way to appeal to them,” she said.

Unfortunately, Lahren’s warning may have arrived too late for Sussex County.

Because what she described as a danger for the Republican Party nationally increasingly looks like a normal pattern in Sussex County.

Schopenhauer Was “Right” About Women?

Sussex County Republican Chairman Joseph Labarbera recently made a remarkable comment on social media.

Discussing philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, Labarbera wrote that Schopenhauer was “right” about women.

Those words deserve more attention than they have received.

Schopenhauer was not exactly writing Hallmark cards about the opposite sex.

In his notorious 1851 essay On Women, Schopenhauer described women as “childish, frivolous and short-sighted.”

He went considerably further, describing women as essentially occupying an intermediate stage between children and adult men.

And that is hardly the extent of Schopenhauer’s views.

Readers should read his works for themselves. Here are some excerpts from his writings in Parerga and Paralipomena, Volume 2:

-“Even the sight of the female form demonstrates that woman is destined neither for great mental nor for physical works. She bears the guilt of life not by acting but by suffering, through the pangs of childbirth, caring for the child, and subservience to her husband, for whom she is supposed to be a patient and cheering companion.” -

-“Yet when the laws conceded to women equal rights with men, they should also have endowed them with a man’s faculty of reason…”-

-“For with the unnaturally favourable position which is given to woman by the monogamous institution and the marriage laws connected therewith, in that they generally regard the woman as the absolute equal of man, which she in no sense is…”-

-”That woman is by nature meant to obey may be seen by the fact that every woman who is placed in the unnatural position of complete independence, immediately attaches herself to some man, by whom she allows herself to be guided and ruled.”-

-”The people who make money are men, not women; and it follows from this that women are neither justified in having unconditional possession of it, nor fit persons to be entrusted with its administration.”-

-”The first love of a mother for her child is, with the lower animals as with men, of a purely instinctive character, and so it ceases when the child is no longer in a physically helpless condition.”-

-”…there is no true reason why a man whose wife suffers from chronic illness, or remains barren, or has gradually become too old for him, should not take a second.”-

Then they should return to Labarbera’s screenshot and look again at what the Chairman of the Sussex County Republican Committee wrote:

Schopenhauer was “right” about women.

Right about what, exactly?

That is not an unfair question. It is the obvious question.

If a county political chairman publicly invokes a philosopher notorious for his contemptuous views about women and declares that philosopher was “right” about women, people are entitled to ask which part was right?

This Is Not Just Some Anonymous Facebook Commenter

That distinction matters.

Labarbera is not simply just another person ranting on Facebook.

He is the Chairman of the Sussex County Republican Committee.

What he says therefore reflects on something larger than himself. And perhaps that is why Lahren’s warning is so relevant.

National Republicans are being warned by a female conservative Fox News personality that the party risks driving women away.

Meanwhile, here in Sussex County, the Republican chairman is declaring Schopenhauer “right” about women.

But perhaps we should not be surprised.

We Have Been Here Before

Labarbera’s comment did not occur in a political vacuum.

Sussex County Republican politics has an active history here.

In 2017, then-Assemblyman — now LD24 Senator — Parker Space was recorded repeatedly calling his female Democratic Assembly opponent Kate Matteson a “bitch.”

Not once, but three times.

The incident became significant enough that then-Governor Chris Christie called on Space to apologize.

Then, in 2021, Sussex County Commissioner Chris Carney, now a candidate for Sussex County Clerk, became embroiled in another controversy after a text message attributed to him surfaced referring to Frankford Board of Education member Jodi Fernandez as “a bitch.”

And now the Chairman of the Sussex County Republican Committee tells us that Arthur Schopenhauer — a philosopher who described women as childish, frivolous and short-sighted — was “right” about women.

Different men. Different times. Different circumstances.

This does not mean that every male member of the Sussex County Republican Party is a misogynist or embraces these sentiments.

But when degrading rhetoric aimed at women repeatedly surfaces among prominent figures within the same political organization, people are entitled to ask why this pattern seems to be emerging.

More importantly, they are entitled to ask what happens afterward.

Where is the accountability?

Where is the institutional objection?

Where is somebody in Republican leadership saying:

“Enough is enough. This is not who we are or what we stand for.”

Because political culture is not established merely by what leaders say.

It is also established by what everyone around them is willing to tolerate.

And that brings us to the most uncomfortable part of this story.

Where Are Sussex County’s Republican Women?

Sussex County has no shortage of Republican women in political positions.

Assemblywoman Dawn Fantasia represents the 24th Legislative District.

Commissioner Jill Space has held positions in Sussex County Republican politics and serves as the county’s Republican State Committeewoman.

Republican women serve as mayors, councilwomen and county committee members throughout Sussex County.

They sought public office. They help lead communities.

Presumably none considers herself a “big child” occupying some intellectual position between a child and a grown man.

So where are they? Where is the objection?

Where is the public statement saying:

This does not represent our party.

If offensive rhetoric toward a Republican woman deserves condemnation when it comes from a Democrat or political opponent, rhetoric degrading women does not suddenly become acceptable when it comes from your own political leadership.

Principles are not principles if they change depending upon whose name appears beneath the Facebook post.

Someone simply has to say that women are not intellectually inferior to men and that rhetoric suggesting otherwise has no place in the Republican Party.

Why is that so difficult?

Inganamort Said It: “Silence Is Consent”

Perhaps one of Sussex County’s own Republican legislators has already supplied the standard by which this silence should be judged.

On June 28, 2026 the New Jersey Globe reported in an article that Assemblyman Mike Inganamort argued that “silence is consent” while criticizing New Jersey’s environmental movement.

He was speaking about a different issue, but the principle he articulated was unmistakable.

Silence is consent.

So let us apply that principle consistently.

If silence is consent, what does the continued silence surrounding these comments mean?

From Sussex County Republican leadership?

Silence.

From prominent Republican elected officials?

Silence.

From Republican women holding positions of political authority?

Silence.

And, thus far, from state Republican leadership?

Silence.

We do not have to invent a standard for evaluating that silence. One of Sussex County’s own Republican legislators already gave us one.

If silence constitutes consent when environmental organizations fail to speak about something Inganamort believes is wrong, why would not the same general principle apply when Republican officials refuse to speak about something happening inside their own political organization?

Either silence matters or it does not.

Political principles cannot be weapons we pull from the drawer when attacking our opponents and quietly put back when they point toward our friends.

And Where Does the NJGOP Stand?

The question should not stop at the Sussex County line.

Where does the New Jersey Republican Party stand on this?

The current Chairwoman of the NJGOP is Christine Giordano Hanlon — an attorney, longtime Republican leader and elected Monmouth County Clerk.

LaBarbera is not merely a Republican voter with a Facebook account. He chairs a county Republican organization.

So does the state Republican Party believe that a county chairman publicly declaring Arthur Schopenhauer “right” about women reflects the Republican Party it is trying to build?

Does Chairwoman Hanlon?

Again, this should be an extraordinarily easy question to answer:

Does the New Jersey Republican Party agree with Labarbera that Schopenhauer was ‘right’ about women? If not, then say so.”

Tomi Lahren warned Republicans that alienating women could cost them elections.

That makes the question impossible to avoid:

What message does the New Jersey Republican Party want women to hear?

Labarbera has already offered his.

Chairwoman Hanlon and the NJGOP now have an opportunity to offer theirs.

This Should Offend All of Us

But perhaps this is where we should stop talking about political parties for a moment.

Because some things ought to transcend them.

Every woman — Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal, married or single, gay or straight, young or old — should be offended by the suggestion that women are somehow intellectually inferior, perpetually childish or naturally subordinate to men.

Not because of her politics.

Because she is a human being entitled to the same dignity and respect as anyone else.

And men should be offended too.

Because when someone speaks contemptuously about “women,” he is not talking about some abstract political constituency.

He is talking about our wives.

Our daughters.

Our mothers.

Our sisters.

Our friends.

Our colleagues.

The women who taught us, raised us, worked beside us, cared for us, challenged us and helped build our families and communities.

You do not have to be a feminist.

You do not have to be a Democrat.

You do not even have to care about politics.

You simply have to recognize that reducing half the human race to “childish, frivolous and short-sighted” is beneath the standards we should expect from anyone entrusted with political leadership.

This should not be a partisan issue.

It should be a matter of basic human dignity.

The Warning Came Too Late

Tomi Lahren warned Republicans about a problem they risk creating.

In Sussex County, the problem may already be here.

But Republicans should not condemn this merely because Lahren warns that it might cost them women’s votes.

They should condemn it because it is wrong.

That is ultimately what makes the silence so difficult to understand.

How many times does something like this have to happen before somebody inside the party finally says they have a problem with it?

Republican leaders — men and women alike — have an opportunity to tell the public where they stand.

So does Chairwoman Christine Giordano Hanlon and the New Jersey Republican Party.

If they disagree with these sentiments, this should be the easiest statement they ever have to make:

Say so.

The bar for basic decency has already been set shockingly low by Sussex County’s elected and Republican Party leadership. Let us see if someone is willing to step over it.

Otherwise, if we apply Assemblyman Inganamort’s general principle consistently, then continued silence carries a meaning of its own.

“Silence is consent.”

And this picture comes from an interesting source.

A REPUBLICAN’S MAP OF WHERE THE MONEY WENT

Assemblyman Rob Clifton, a Republican representing Legislative District 12, recently shared a map illustrating where discretionary spending earmarks in New Jersey’s FY2027 budget and supplemental appropriations are going according to legislative each district.

The concept is remarkably simple:

Put a pin on the district map where the money is going.

And there was plenty of money to track.

New Jersey’s FY2027 budget appropriates approximately $60.74 billion in state funds. On top of that, more than $200 million in legislative additions and another $358.8 million in supplemental FY2026 spending became part of the larger budget debate.

Pins appear all across New Jersey.

Then look at Legislative District 24.

LD24 is comprised of Sussex County and portions of Warren and Morris counties.

Not one pin.

NOTHING. NOT ONE DOLLAR FOR LD24!

Republicans inside LD24 noticed it too.

The Republican Club of Roxbury recently reposted Clifton’s map and drew attention to something that should be obvious to every taxpayer in LD24:

“Take a close look at this map. What do you notice about our Legislative District 24? We don’t have any pins.”

And Roxbury is not some Democratic stronghold taking a partisan shot at Republican legislators.

Roxbury is part of LD24.

Its residents are represented by Senator Parker Space, Assemblywoman Dawn Fantasia and Assemblyman Michael Inganamort.

So, this is not criticism coming from Democrats or some political opponents.

Republicans within the district are looking at their own Republican representatives and asking essentially the same question:

Where the hell is our share?

THERE WAS PLENTY OF MONEY, JUST NOT FOR LD24

There certainly was no shortage of money.

New Jersey’s FY2027 budget appropriates $60,743,569,000 in state funds.

Parker Space himself complained about where some of that money was going.

When Space announced his vote against the budget, he accused Democrats of going “hog wild funneling pork spending into Democrat districts.”

Apparently, Trenton finally took Parker Space seriously. He demanded spending cuts, so they went and completely cut out LD24.

While other legislators were getting money for their districts, where was the LD24 team?

It is easy to complain that other legislators are bringing money home.

The harder question is why the LD24 legislators are not.

WHAT ONE OF THOSE PINS COULD HAVE MEANT FOR LD24

Perhaps “discretionary spending” sounds like another obscure Trenton budget term.

But look at what some of these legislative appropriations could actually pay for.

The FY2027 budget includes legislatively added funding for organizations and programs serving children and families, seniors, people with disabilities, food-assistance programs, municipalities and community organizations, among many other purposes.

For example, legislators secured additional appropriations for the New Jersey Association of Centers for Independent Living, which serves people with disabilities; the Larc Norcross School Special Needs Adult Program; Glassboro Child Development Centers; food-assistance initiatives; family-service organizations; and numerous other local and community programs.

In other words, those pins are not just numbers on a map.

They can represent real services for real people who need them.

So what does the failure shown on the map mean for LD24 in human terms?

Not one appropriation for a senior program.

Not one appropriation for an organization serving people with disabilities.

Not one appropriation for a children’s program.

Not one appropriation for a community organization.

Not one appropriation for a municipal project.

Nothing!

Are we seriously supposed to believe that among the hundreds of thousands of people living throughout Sussex County and the portions of Warren and Morris counties that comprise LD24, there was not one worthy organization, program or project deserving of additional state support?

Of course there was.

We have seniors who need services.

We have children and families who need programs.

We have residents with disabilities and organizations that serve them.

We have food pantries and nonprofits helping struggling families.

We have volunteer fire departments and first-aid squads.

We have municipalities with infrastructure needs.

And we have communities confronting serious utility-reliability problems.

The needs exist.

What appears to be missing is the political ability necessary to get even one of those needs represented in LD24.

And that brings us directly to the person who has represented this area in Trenton for more than a decade.

PARKER SPACE: WHERE IS THE MUSCLE OR THE SKILL?

That question falls most heavily on Senator Parker Space.

He has been in the New Jersey Legislature since 2013. That is more than a decade.

He spent approximately ten years in the Assembly before moving into the Senate.

After that much time in Trenton, a legislator should have relationships. He should understand the budget process. He should know the players. He should know where the pressure points are.

Most importantly, he should have developed some political muscle — and the political skill necessary to use it.

Political influence is not measured by the number of Facebook posts you make.

Nor is it measured by how often you tell voters how terrible Democrats are.

And it is certainly not measured simply by voting “no” after everyone else’s projects have already made it into the budget.

Political influence is measured by results.

And this map raises an uncomfortable question:

How seriously is the LD24 delegation taken in Trenton?

Other legislators apparently figured out how to get projects funded.

LD24 apparently did not.

Perhaps the Democratic majority does not particularly care about nor fear a heavily Republican district. That is certainly possible.

But that is not an excuse for ineffective representation.

That is precisely why we need effective representation in Trenton.

We do not elect a senator to explain why the other side will not give us anything.

We elect one to figure out how to produce results for the people.

AND THEN THERE ARE THE POWER OUTAGES

Space’s apparent lack of influence becomes even harder to understand when we look at one of the biggest problems confronting New Jersey, especially Sussex County: utility reliability.

Sussex County has endured repeated and prolonged power outages for years.

Families have lost food. Businesses have lost revenue. Residents have gone days without electricity. For seniors and people dependent upon electrically powered medical equipment, outages can become considerably more than an inconvenience -- it can become life threatening.

And this is not merely anecdotal anymore.

The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities has initiated proceedings against JCP&L over its failure to meet the state’s minimum reliability standards in 2022, 2023 and 2024, while also reviewing utility responses to the widespread July 2026 storm outages.

And now, JCP&L is maneuvering to increase its service rates again.

And Parker Space is not merely one of 40 senators watching this happen.

He sits on the Senate Environment and Energy Committee.

Even more remarkably, Space previously served on the board of Sussex Rural Electric Cooperative.

Think about that combination.

He represents a district suffering serious utility-reliability problems.

He has firsthand experience with an electric utility.

He sits on the Senate committee dealing with energy policy.

And he has been in the Legislature for more than a decade.

If anyone is positioned to become an advocate for electric reliability in Northwest New Jersey, it should be Parker Space.

So again:

Where are the results?

FACEBOOK RANTS ARE NOT RESULTS

Then we have Assemblywoman Dawn Fantasia.

Anyone following LD24 politics knows that Fantasia certainly is not shy about telling everyone what is wrong with New Jersey.

Her almost daily Facebook tirades routinely feature political commentary and denunciations of Democrats and Trenton.

But taxpayers did not elect a Facebook commentator. They elected an Assembly representative.

There is a difference between generating outrage and generating results.

Apparently, all those Facebook rants are not helping LD24 taxpayers get any funds according to the map.

Being loud is not the same thing as being effective.

INGANAMORT HAS A PROBLEM IN HIS OWN BACKYARD

Assemblyman Michael Inganamort should be paying particularly close attention to this controversy.

Why?

Because Roxbury is in the Morris County portion of the district he represents.

Republicans in one of his own municipalities are publicly circulating the map showing the failure of LD24’s representatives to get a single dollar for the district.

IF YOU CANNOT BRING OUR MONEY BACK, AT LEAST HELP US KEEP IT HERE

If our representatives are unable to bring our tax dollars back from Trenton, you would at least expect them to support efforts aimed at keeping more of those dollars in taxpayers’ pockets in the first place.

And that is where the contradiction becomes difficult to ignore.

Taxpayer advocates have been working with municipalities across New Jersey to challenge the state’s automatic gas-tax escalator and restore something that should not be controversial:

If Trenton wants to increase the gas tax, legislators should have to vote on it.

A municipal resolution drafted by the New Jersey Property Taxpayers Coalition has been circulating, and passing, throughout New Jersey urging the Legislature to repeal the automatic increase mechanism and restore direct legislative accountability for future increases.

After the July outages, the Coalition formally asked the BPU and Division of Rate Counsel for a comprehensive investigation of utility reliability, infrastructure investment, emergency response, staffing and regulatory oversight. The request also called for public hearings and a formal reliability action plan. The Coalition is also circulating a resolution demanding that the Legislature address utility reliability.

These are not abstract partisan exercises.

They are attempts by taxpayers to get Trenton to address problems affecting the people.

Yet despite all their rhetoric about fighting Trenton, where has the LD24 delegation been while taxpayers and municipalities have organized behind these efforts?

Think about the contradiction.

They tell us Trenton takes too much of our money.

They tell us Trenton does not listen to Northwest New Jersey.

They tell us Democrats control the spending and send the money elsewhere.

Then when taxpayers organize and provide an opportunity to push back, there is no support from the LD24 delegation.

You certainly cannot spend years telling voters that you are “fighting for them” and then become an obstacle when taxpayers decide to do some fighting on their own.

And if our representatives cannot do their job, taxpayers are entitled to ask exactly what they are getting from their representatives, especially after they recently gave themselves a 67% pay increase.

IT WAS NOT ALWAYS THIS BAD IN LD24

Before anyone argues the predictable excuse that LD24 is a Republican district operating in a state controlled by Democrats, it is worth remembering something.

For decades, this area was represented by the late Republican Senator Robert E. “Bob” Littell.

Littell represented District 24 in the Legislature for 40 years—first in the Assembly and later in the Senate. He eventually became chairman of the powerful Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee and co-chairman of the Joint Budget Oversight Committee.

But here is the important part.

Littell did not suddenly forget how to represent his district when Republicans lost control of Trenton.

He remained an influential member of the Budget and Appropriations Committee even after Democrats took control of the Senate.

He understood something that seems increasingly lost in today’s politics:

Being in the minority does not relieve you of the responsibility to produce results.

Littell developed relationships. He negotiated. He worked across the aisle. And he understood how to use the legislative process to advance the interests of the people he represented.

That is representation.

And it exposes the weakness of the excuse that Republicans simply cannot accomplish anything because Democrats control Trenton.

Bob Littell dealt with Democratic majorities too. He found a way to make things happen.

Space has now been in the Legislature for more than a decade.

He holds the same Senate seat once occupied by Littell.

So perhaps the problem is not that LD24 is Republican. The problem seems to be who are the Republicans representing LD24.

OPPOSITION IS NOT ACCOMPLISHMENT

There is a larger lesson here.

For years, LD24 voters have heard about everything their Republican legislators oppose.

But eventually voters have to ask another question:

What have you actually accomplished?

There is a fundamental difference between opposition and representation.

Anyone can issue a press release.

Anyone can write a Facebook post.

Anyone can give a speech.

Anyone can vote no.

But representation requires something harder.

It requires negotiating.

It requires building relationships.

It requires persuading people who disagree with you.

It requires knowing when to fight and when to make a deal.

And sometimes it requires walking into a room controlled by the other party and refusing to leave until the people you represent receive their fair share.

That requires political muscle, and political skill.

This map raises a serious question about whether LD24 has either.

BUT DO NOT WORRY. THEY WILL FIND US AT ELECTION TIME

There is one time when the LD24 representatives never seem to have trouble finding their constituents.

Election season.

Then they will know exactly where they are.

They will find Sussex County.

They will find Warren County.

They will find Morris County.

They will appear at fairs and festivals.

They will attend firehouse, VFW and American Legion events and serve food.

They will shake hands.

They will pose for photographs.

They will tell us how hard are fighting for you.

And then they will ask for your votes.

Before giving them those votes, taxpayers should ask to see something first.

The receipts.

What did you bring home?

What did you accomplish?

What did you do about our power outages?

What did you do when taxpayers asked for help fighting automatic gas-tax increases?

What investment did you secure for our communities?

In other words:

Where are “OUR” pins?

Because taxpayers should not be satisfied with just being told that their representatives are “fighting” for them anymore and take their word for it.

Power is measured by results.

Representation is measured by results.

Right now, the map picture tells the sad story of LD24’s reality.

Every district got pinned.

LD24 got nailed.

Legislators exercise judgment.

Political parties exercise judgment.

And ultimately, voters exercise judgment.

Political parties must decide what causes to champion, but also who should become the public face of those causes.

Currently, voter identification has become a statewide issue after it was recently revealed that about 6,600 illegal immigrants were found on the voter rolls of New Jersey. This is not a good thing.

Governor Mikie Sherrill indicated she is open to considering voter identification legislation. We shall see what comes of that and to what extent.

Republicans are making efforts to demanding action to address the issue. But if Republicans genuinely believe voter identification is currently one of the most important election integrity issues facing New Jersey, then they should treat it like one.

Serious issues deserve serious messengers.

Instead, Republican leadership has chosen Senator Parker Space (LD24)—the very legislator whose public career has become defined by one controversy after another, and questionable judgment.

Republicans pointed to Space’s long-pending bill S1733 as the vehicle to move the reform efforts forward. But since its introduction in January, the bill has attracted little to no support and only one co-sponsor. Not exactly something one would call a serious effort to push serious legislation.

Further, based upon his public history, why would GOP leaders choose Parker Space as the public official to become the face of legislation that even some Republicans argue could disproportionately affect minority voters?

What made Republican leaders look at Space’s record and conclude:

“Yes. He’s the person we want representing us on one of the most politically sensitive issues currently in America.”

This is, after all, the public official who posed for a picture in front of a Confederate flag with his wife, Sussex County Commissioner Jill Space, bearing the words “If the South Would’ve Won, We Would’ve Had It Made.”

He commented on his social media post of this picture writing “I Hope No One is Offended! LOL!”

Even members of his own party questioned his judgment. The NJ Herald reported that Assembly Minority Leader Jon Bramnick called the photo “troublesome.”

This is the same public official who, according to reports, sports what appears to be a Confederate flag tattoo on the top of his left arm which has generated controversy for years.

In 2015, the State Assembly voted 75–0 to condemn the official use of the Confederate flag.

Not surprisingly, Space was the only abstention in the entire chamber.

This is the same public official who posted a picture on social media of a family outing in New York where apparently one of the highlights of the day was a picture with a so called “Brothaaa!”

This is the same public official who referred to Kate Matteson, a Sussex County mom who challenged him in a 2017 election, as a “BITCH” numerous times in a single interview. Click to listen.

The incident even resulted in then Governor Chris Christie calling on Space to apologize.

This is the same public official who fed roadkill to former Congressman Scott Garrett without his knowledge while he attended an event at Space Farms. According to a Chasing News video, hosted by former New Jersey gubernatorial candidate Bill Spadea, a reporter followed the Space Farms roadkill truck as it pulled roadkill off the road and turned it into food for their carnivores. The video notes that for 10 years (about 14 years ago) Space Farms had contracts with various counties and municipalities in which the zoo was paid to remove dead carcasses from the road. They still do.

At about 3 minutes, 50 seconds of the video, the reporter notes:

“The Space family was sponsoring the Sussex County Republican picnic at Space Farms one year and then Congressman Scott Garrett was enjoying the venison and said…”
The video cuts to Parker Space, who continues the story about the Congressman:

“This is great. He says, what is this?

Oh my god, that’s roadkill.

They thought it was a joke.”

After a brief in-studio discussion about the dangers of eating roadkill, the video cuts back to then Assemblyman Space, who explains:

“It’s not uncommon for us to ah, eh eat off-road ourselves.”

This is the same public official who has a pet groundhog at Space Farms named “Stonewall Jackson” in honor of the Civil War Confederate General. People may reasonably wonder why, of all the figures in American history, was this name chosen.

Some Space supporters may dismiss all these incidents simply as personal expression. Others may dismiss them as harmless tradition.

Despite these controversies, Space still has his political team behind him.

Reasonable people may disagree about what all this means.

But many others see these incidents as symbols of slavery, segregation, and racial oppression.

But this was not just one careless photograph.

It was not one careless remark.

It was not just one isolated controversy.

At what point does a series of incidents like these exhibit a pattern of questionable judgment?

At what point should this pattern of judgment become a concern to taxpayers?

At what point does this type of judgment become unacceptable to people?

No reasonable person can deny that the Confederate flag is among the most politically divisive symbols in America. That fact alone should have caused Republican leaders to ask a simple question. Is this really the messenger we want?

Unfortunately, the controversy does not end there.

In the early 1980s, construction workers uncovered the remains of three enslaved African American men.

Their names were Tom, Dan, and John.

Rather than immediately receiving the dignity of a proper burial, their remains apparently ended up at Space Farms Museum, where they remained for approximately three decades before finally being laid to rest in 2012.

How does a person even begin to think about that?

Not museum curiosities. Not historical artifacts.

Human beings.

For nearly thirty years.

How does something like that happen?

Even more striking is the timeline.

By the time those men finally received a proper burial in 2012, Space was hardly a private citizen. He had already served as a Sussex County Commissioner since 2010.

Public symbols matter. Public behaviors matter.

Political parties should know they matter.

Public officials should know they matter.

If they do not, they have no business being a public official.

Politics is built on credibility.

And credibility depends upon judgment.

This is a political reality.

At some point, incidents like these stops being just history.

It becomes evidence of the quality of a person’s judgment.

And judgment is exactly what voters are entitled to evaluate.

Because leadership is not merely about the legislation you sponsor.

It is about the judgment you exercise.

And sometimes, before a politician ever says a word...

...the messenger has already spoken.

That is not the cost of purchasing a home.

It is not the cost of renovating one.

It is simply the cost of continuing to own it in New Jersey. Or, as we have said before, the cost of renting it from the government.

When we published our previous article entitled “After Half a Century, New Jersey’s Property Tax Lie Comes Due” on February 4, 2026 we argued that New Jersey’s fifty-year promise of property tax relief had failed. That was not intended as a rhetorical flourish. It was a serious claim deserving of a serious response.

When the New Jersey state income tax was enacted in 1976, it was sold as relief. For fifty years, New Jersey residents were told a simple story -- adopt a state income tax and property taxes will finally come down. Instead, it became a license for Trenton to extract more, spend more, and demand more, while property taxes continued to soar upward without an end in sight.

It failed miserably.

The relief never comes, but the bills do.

After five decades, New Jersey homeowners are not relieved — they are crushed. We suffer from the highest property taxes in the United States. The average homeowner paid $10,570 in property taxes last year —hitting another record high.

According to a report in the Shore News Network, New Jersey’s working-class towns are getting hit the hardest.

Now, according to a new article dated August 4, 2026 on Northjersey.com:

—“Shelling out just over $9,100 annually on average, New Jersey residents spend more on taxes for the properties they own than homeowners in any other state.

Using a median first-time homebuyer age of 38, combined with a life expectancy of age 79, New Jersey homeowners will pay out over $375,000 in property taxes over the course of their life, a figure 220% higher than the national average of $117,000.

By comparison, residents in Connecticut, No. 2 on the list of the top 10 states where property taxes are the most costly, pay an average of $6,300 annually. Using the same calculations, this translates to a lifetime figure of roughly $262,000.”—

Think about what $375,000 represents to a family.

It could pay for a child’s college education.

It could fund a comfortable retirement.

It could start a small business.

Instead, for the average New Jersey homeowner, it disappears one quarterly tax bill at a time simply to remain where they already live.

Because this issue affects every homeowner in New Jersey—not just members of our Coalition—we believed elected officials should have an opportunity to explain whether they still believe the promise made in 1976 has been fulfilled. So, on February 4, 2026, the Coalition wrote to every member of the New Jersey Legislature and asked them to answer a straightforward question:

Do you acknowledge that the state income tax, enacted in 1976 with the promise of reducing property taxes, failed to deliver what New Jersey taxpayers were promised?

If the answer is no, explain why New Jersey homeowners now pay the highest property taxes in the nation.

If the answer is yes, tell taxpayers what you intend to do about it.

These are not “gotcha” questions. They are questions of public accountability.

To his credit, Assemblyman Jay Webber (LD26) responded promptly and expressed his support for addressing New Jersey’s property tax crisis. He recognized that taxpayers who ask legitimate questions deserve legitimate answers.

Unfortunately, the overall response from the Legislature has been remarkably underwhelming. For an issue affecting millions of New Jersey residents and involving the largest recurring expense many families face after their mortgage, one would expect a vigorous public discussion. Instead, the silence has been nothing less than shocking.

Considering that the average New Jersey homeowner is now projected to pay more than $375,000,00 in property taxes over a lifetime, one would expect a far greater sense of urgency from those entrusted with representing the public.

Silence may be politically convenient, or actual consent, but it does nothing for the families struggling to stay in their homes, the seniors watching their retirement savings disappear, or the young couples wondering whether homeownership in New Jersey has become permanently out of reach.

Fifty years ago, New Jersey taxpayers were promised relief. Today they are paying the highest property taxes in America.

The question is no longer whether the promise of 1976 failed.

The evidence is all around us and is more than overwhelming.

The only remaining question is whether our elected officials have the honesty to admit what every homeowner already knows—that the promise failed.

For fifty years, New Jersey taxpayers keep struggling to hold up their end of the bargain. They paid the taxes.

Now, after asking the average New Jersey family to surrender more than $375,000 simply to remain in their own home, taxpayers deserve more than campaign slogans, Facebook outrage performances and deadhead legislation in preparation for elections.

They deserve the truth.

They deserve accountability.

They deserve someone to actually address the issue seriously.

They deserve leaders willing to confront failure instead of pretending it never happened.

Now it is finally time for Trenton to keep its promise—or finally admit that it never could.

Once again, our State has failed.

Whether it is prolonged power outages, deteriorating infrastructure, recurring transportation problems, automatic gas tax increases, or administrative failures involving elections and voter registration, New Jersey residents are repeatedly assured that the system is working—only to discover yet another significant failure.

But there is another consequence of these recurring failures that may be even more damaging than the failures themselves.

They erode the public confidence upon which representative government depends.

Whenever New Jersey government faces criticism, the response is remarkably consistent.

Trust the system.

Trust the elected officials.

Trust the experts.

Trust the bureaucracy.

Trust the software.

Trust the process.

Trust the formula.

But trust is not something government can simply demand or expect automatically.

Trust must be earned.

That is particularly important today because public confidence in government is already near historic lows. According to the Pew Research Center, only 17 percent of Americans say they trust the federal government to do what is right “just about always” or “most of the time.” Gallup likewise reports that Americans’ confidence in major public institutions remains near historic lows.

Those numbers should concern every elected official.

Public confidence is not merely another polling statistic. It is part of the infrastructure of self-government. Citizens must have confidence that government can competently perform the essential functions that only government can perform. Without that confidence, every institution becomes weaker and less effective.

Unfortunately, New Jersey’s elected officials have not exactly inspired public confidence—or dazzled taxpayers with their competence.

Consider just a few examples.

For years, utility companies have assured residents that widespread power outages are simply the unavoidable consequence of severe weather. Yet hundreds of thousands of New Jersey families continue to lose electricity for days at a time after storms that many other states routinely withstand. Ratepayers continue paying higher bills while waiting for the next promise that improvements are coming.

That is precisely why the New Jersey Property Taxpayers Coalition has called for an independent audit and investigation into the performance of our electric utilities and the effectiveness of regulatory oversight. Government cannot simply tell people to trust monopoly utilities while refusing to demand accountability when those monopolies repeatedly fail.

Then there is New Jersey’s Motor Vehicle Commission. We recently learned that approximately 6,600 noncitizens were reportedly registered to vote because of what officials describe as a system error. Once again, the public is assured that the problem has been identified and will be corrected.

But this is not the first time New Jersey has experienced a significant administrative failure involving one of government’s core responsibilities.

In 2020, after state officials praised New Jersey’s first statewide vote-by-mail primary as a success, Sussex County election officials discovered that 1,666 mail-in ballots had gone uncounted for more than two months because they had been placed in a box in a closet. Officials ultimately counted the ballots and stated that the revised totals did not change the outcome of any race. Nevertheless, the incident demonstrated how easily public confidence can be shaken when government systems fail—even when the outcome ultimately remained unchanged.

Then there is the notorious New Jersey gas tax escalator.

Every year New Jersey motorists pay more at the pump, not because legislators publicly debate and vote for another tax increase, but because the Legislature enacted a law allowing the annual adjustment to be calculated administratively by Trenton bureaucrats sitting at their desks rather than requiring a new public vote each time taxes increase.

In effect, New Jersey has created a modern form of taxation without representation, without any actual annual accountability. The political responsibility that should accompany every tax increase has been replaced by an automatic calculation.

Different agencies.

Different issues.

Different consequences.

Different failures.

Yet they all point to the same governing philosophy.

Citizens must place their faith in systems rather than active accountability.

When the lights go out, trust the utility.

When voter registration fails, trust the software.

When ballots are overlooked, trust the process.

When taxes increase, trust the formula.

At what point do citizens stop being expected to trust government and begin expecting government to earn that trust?

Perhaps our elected officials, who recently awarded themselves a 67% pay increase, have become so accustomed to these failures that they no longer appreciate how profoundly they affect the public.

But, the citizens do. The taxpayers do. The business owners do.

For many New Jersey residents, dealing with government increasingly feels like screaming into a void. Whether the issue is prolonged power outages, automatic tax increases, deteriorating roads, administrative failures, or other basic governmental responsibilities, citizens attend public meetings, write letters, testify at hearings, contact their elected officials, and file complaints—only to wonder whether anyone is truly listening, or cares.

Today, public participation often feels less like representative government and more like a useless ritual. The people speak. They complain. They testify. They write letters. Yet nothing seems to change.

One of the most frustrating aspects of these failures is that ordinary citizens often have little actual recourse. It appears that government understands this and seem to take advantage of it.

You cannot choose another electric utility. You cannot opt out of paying the gas tax. You cannot simply replace a government agency when it fails.

When citizens have nowhere else to turn, accountability becomes even more important—not less.

Yet too often the message feels unmistakable:

“Accept it. The system has spoken.”

That is dangerous.

Government cannot function effectively without the confidence of the governed. When citizens believe that their voices no longer matter—that decisions have already been made by bureaucracies, automatic formulas, or institutions insulated from meaningful public accountability—they lose confidence not only in individual officials, but in government itself. We seem to be there already.

Every preventable mistake.

Every unanswered concern.

Every failure to accept responsibility.

Every explanation that asks the public simply to “trust the system.”

Each one chips away at the confidence upon which representative government depends.

Government exists to perform certain essential responsibilities that individuals cannot perform on their own: keeping the lights on, administering elections competently and fairly, maintaining accurate public records, protecting public safety, maintaining essential infrastructure, and collecting taxes openly and accountably.

These are not optional responsibilities. They are the foundation upon which public confidence is built.

In our previous article, we argued that New Jersey has become a state where government failure is increasingly accepted as normal.

Sadly, little has changed. We are still living in a state of perpetual failure.

The failures continue.

The explanations continue.

The promises continue.

The carefully choreographed social media outrage performances continue.

But what also continues is the disappearance of the public’s confidence that government is capable of functioning effectively for the benefit of the people.

Trust cannot be demanded. It cannot be legislated. It cannot be regulated.

It cannot be restored through another press release, carefully crafted social media performance assuring everyone that everything is under control or another finger-pointing outrage performance.

It must be earned—day after day, decision after decision—through competence, transparency, and accountability.

Government exists to preserve and promote the conditions under which every person can flourish through their own individual efforts while protecting the equal dignity and rights of all.

It cannot fulfill that mission without the confidence of the people it serves.

New Jersey’s government asks the people to trust it every day.

Perhaps it is time the government started earning that trust.

Sussex County Republicans are defined by their ruling political dynasty as much as by the roadside zoo that is both an emblem and way of life for that dynasty. Yes, we are talking about Jill and Parker Space – County Commissioner Director and Senator Space – and Space Farms Zoo & Museum.

Where once you had the Littell family, now you have the Space family. And just as the Littells gifted the county with Senator Steve Oroho, Senator Oroho was pretty much responsible for gifting the county with the Spaces.

And what a gift.

We came across this rather unusual video the other day and thought we’d share it. It is certainly something to contemplate on a boiling hot summer’s day – especially if you are out for a drive and spot something dead on the road.

The video is courtesy of the old Chasing News program on FOX, hosted back then by none other than future gubernatorial candidate Bill Spadea. This video was posted in March of 2017 and had to do with the manner in which Space Farms feeds some of the wildlife it keeps at the roadside zoo it operates.

Chasing News had a reporter follow the Space Farms roadkill truck as it pulled roadkill off the road and turned it into food for their carnivores. The video notes that for 10 years (14 years ago) Space Farms had contracts with various counties and municipalities in which the zoo was paid to remove dead carcasses from the road. They still do.

At about the 3 minutes, 50 seconds point in the video, the reporter notes:

“The Space family was sponsoring the Sussex County Republican picnic at Space Farms one year and then Congressman Scott Garrett was enjoying the venison and said…”

Then the video cuts to Parker Space, who continues the story:

“This is great. He says, what is this?

Oh my god, that’s roadkill.

They thought it was a joke.”

After a brief in-studio discussion about the dangers of eating roadkill, the video cuts back to then Assemblyman Space, who explains:

“It’s not uncommon for us to ah, eh eat off-road ourselves.”

So, there’s a name for it. We’ve always wondered.

All this is… whatever it is, but we’re pretty sure that state regulations would frown upon serving roadkill to a group of unsuspecting consumers at a political event. We wonder if anyone had a case of the trots.

We took a quick look on Google, which provided this AI Overview (for what it is worth):

That sounds about right.

But really, we wouldn’t know. Eating roadkill isn’t a thing in our neck of the woods. Those interested should check with the New Jersey Department of Health, or maybe with Fish & Wildlife. If you do, please let us know.

Here’s the full video. Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKhsY_vBSp

For years, New Jersey residents have been told that widespread power outages are simply the unavoidable consequence of severe weather.

They are not.

Storms may be unavoidable. Systemic failures are not.

Following another series of prolonged outages that left hundreds of thousands of New Jersey residents without electricity for days, the New Jersey Property Taxpayers Coalition is taking action. The Coalition has formally called upon the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (BPU) and the Division of Rate Counsel to launch a comprehensive audit and investigation into New Jersey’s electric utilities.

In a letter dated July 10, 2026, to BPU President Ben Hertz-Shargel and Division of Rate Counsel Director Brian O. Lipman, Esq., the Coalition identified numerous areas that warrant immediate review, including:

• Utility reliability and outage response;

• Infrastructure investment and maintenance;

• Emergency preparedness;

• Staffing levels and deployment of repair crews;

• Vegetation management practices;

• Regulatory oversight; and

• Whether New Jersey ratepayers are receiving the level of service they are paying for.

The Coalition has also requested public hearings and the development of a comprehensive action plan to improve the reliability and resilience of New Jersey’s electrical grid.

This effort is about long over-due accountability.

Monopoly utilities have an obligation to provide reliable service, and state regulators have an obligation to ensure they do. When either falls short, New Jersey families pay the price.

New Jersey residents pay some of the highest utility bills in America. We also pay the highest property taxes in the nation and among the highest gas taxes in the country. Families should not have to wonder whether the lights will stay on after every significant storm.

Power outages today mean far more than temporary inconvenience.

They mean spoiled food, interrupted medical equipment, lost business income, dangerous traffic conditions, elderly residents and young children enduring extreme temperatures, parents struggling to care for their families, and entire communities brought to a standstill.

That is unacceptable in one of the wealthiest states in America.

New Jersey residents deserve better.

The Coalition recently issued a statewide press release announcing this initiative and has begun discussions with the Division of Rate Counsel regarding potential next steps. We appreciate the willingness of the Rate Counsel’s Office to discuss these concerns and recognize that protecting New Jersey consumers is central to its mission.

But conversations alone are not enough.

The public deserves answers—and action.

The Coalition intends to secure both for the people of New Jersey.

Among the questions that deserve immediate answers are:

• How much has each utility invested in maintaining and modernizing its infrastructure compared to shareholder returns?

• Have staffing reductions contributed to slower restoration times?

• Are maintenance and vegetation management standards being properly enforced?

• Are state regulators adequately protecting New Jersey ratepayers?

• Why do large-scale outages continue occurring year after year despite increasing utility costs?

These are questions that deserve independent answers—not carefully crafted public relations statements or performative outrage from elected officials after every storm while nothing changes.

This initiative marks only the beginning of the Coalition‘s statewide effort.

Over the coming weeks, the Coalition will encourage residents, municipalities, elected officials, civic organizations, and business leaders throughout New Jersey to join us in demanding a comprehensive investigation into utility performance and regulatory oversight.

Reliable electric service is not a luxury. It is one of the most fundamental requirements of modern life.

Government exists, in part, to ensure that the essential conditions necessary for people and businesses to flourish are protected. When families cannot depend upon something as basic as electricity, government is failing one of its most important responsibilities.

Every New Jersey resident is a ratepayer.

Every New Jersey resident deserves accountability.

The Coalition is committed to making sure that accountability finally becomes a reality.

We will continue pressing for answers, demanding transparency, and advocating for meaningful reforms until New Jersey families receive the reliable electric service they deserve.

We encourage every New Jersey resident, municipal governing body, civic organization, business organization, and elected official to join us in demanding a comprehensive audit and investigation into New Jersey’s electric utilities. Together, we can begin restoring the accountability that New Jersey ratepayers deserve.

New Jersey residents faithfully pay their utility bills every month. They have every right to expect the service they were promised.

The days of accepting repeated utility failures as simply “the new normal” must come to an end.

The New Jersey Property Taxpayers Coalition intends to help make sure they do.

Reasonable people can disagree about the size of government. They can debate taxes, regulations, healthcare, education, housing, and countless other public policies.

But before government attempts to solve the world’s most complicated problems, it should first demonstrate that it can accomplish the most basic ones.

Keeping the lights on would seem like a good place to start.

Once again, hundreds of thousands of New Jersey residents found themselves without electricity for days. Refrigerators shut off. Food spoiled. Businesses lost revenue. Families endured sweltering nights. Elderly residents worried about medical equipment. Traffic lights shut off. Daily life came to a standstill.

Unfortunately, this is no longer unusual. It has become part of life in New Jersey.

For some families, a power outage is an inconvenience. For others, it means losing hundreds of dollars’ worth of groceries they can scarcely afford to replace. It means checking on aging parents or worrying about sick children who may depend on electrically powered medical equipment. It means small businesses closing their doors, hourly workers losing wages, and children trying to sleep through another hot summer night. Government failure is never abstract. It is always endured by ordinary people.

Perhaps the most frustrating part is that none of this is new.

New Jersey has experienced major storm-related power outages for years. Every administration has known the vulnerabilities. Governors have changed. Legislators have changed. Utility regulators have changed. Republicans and Democrats alike have had years—indeed decades—to ask hard questions, modernize the grid, strengthen our infrastructure, and demand greater accountability.

Yet after every major outage, the script never changes.

Some public officials issue statements.

Some engage in outrage performances Facebook trying to accumulate “likes”.

Some post social media “updates” which are just screenshots from the utility companies’ websites.

Some promise investigations.

Some point fingers at the utilities while the utilities point to the weather.

Republicans blame Democrats.

Democrats blame Republicans.

Everyone seems to find someone else responsible.

Then the lights come back on, the headlines disappear, the performances cease, the officials take a bow and then exit stage right.

And nothing changes before the next storm arrives.

Meanwhile, New Jersey families continue paying the price. Power outages do not distinguish between Republicans and Democrats or ask who someone voted for. Everyone sits in the dark together.

Families on both sides of the aisle lose their food. Parents on both sides of the aisle worry about their children and elderly relatives. Small businesses on both sides of the aisle lose customers and income.

Reliable electricity is not a Republican issue. It is not a Democratic issue.

It is one of the most basic responsibilities of modern government. And New Jersey has failed -- again.

New Jersey’s electrical grid looks less like twenty-first century infrastructure in one of the wealthiest and highest-taxed states in America and more like the backdrop of an old spaghetti Western—weathered wooden poles leaning over streets, sagging wires, and a system that seems held together by hope and temporary repairs.

Yet this is the same state that routinely asks its citizens to trust government with increasingly complex responsibilities. We create commissions, authorities, mandates, studies, strategic plans, and new regulations. We debate about artificial intelligence, climate policy, identity politics, school funding, housing mandates, economic transformation, and countless other issues.

Yet somehow, providing reliable electricity—a technology that has existed for well over a century—continues to elude us.

If government cannot reliably perform one of the most basic functions of modern civilization, why should citizens have confidence in its ability to perform far more complicated ones?

One of the fastest-growing “home improvement” purchases in New Jersey is no longer a new deck or a kitchen renovation.

It is a backup generator.

Families are expected to spend thousands of dollars simply to ensure that their homes have electricity when the public electrical system fails. It is difficult to imagine a clearer sign of institutional failure than expecting families to spend thousands of dollars compensating for infrastructure they already pay government and regulated utilities to provide. New Jersey families should not have to spend thousands of dollars to subsidize the government’s failure.

That is the larger issue.

A backup generator may be a practical solution for an individual homeowner, but it is not a solution for society. Every generator purchased because people no longer trust the public infrastructure represents another vote of no confidence in our state officials.

Citizens already pay monthly electric bills. They pay taxes that support the agencies responsible for regulating those utilities.

They should not also have to purchase an expensive backup electrical system simply because prolonged outages have become routine. It should not become a requirement for peace of mind.

Leadership means addressing foreseeable problems before they become recurring crises, especially when the problem has existed for years. For years, New Jersey’s elected officials have known that severe weather repeatedly exposes weaknesses in our electrical infrastructure.

Yet after each major outage, we hear the same promises and the same finger-pointing.

That is not leadership. That is failure.

This is just an example of the growing expectation that citizens must privately compensate for public failures.

What is most striking is not that the power went out—that is routine in New Jersey.

It was the public reaction.

People were angry. People were frustrated. People complained.

And beneath that anger was something even more troubling.

Hopelessness.

No one expected anything different.

They immediately turned to generators, gasoline, extension cords, flashlights, and dry ice—not because anyone believed this was acceptable, but because they believed it was not going to change.

People have not accepted government failure because they approve of it.

They have surrendered to it because they have lost confidence that anyone is capable—or willing—to fix it.

That may be the greatest failure of all.

The hallmark of institutional decline is not simply that failures occur. Every institution occasionally fails.

The hallmark of decline is when those failures become so routine that people stop expecting them to be corrected. Their expectations become smaller. Their confidence fades. Their hope diminishes.

They just surrender to them and accept them as normal.

People should expect competence from the institutions they fund.

Government does not earn legitimacy through speeches, press conferences or social media performances. It earns legitimacy by competently performing the basic responsibilities for which government exists.

Government derives its legitimacy from its ability to preserve and promote the conditions under which people can flourish through their own individual efforts while protecting the equal dignity and rights of everyone.

Reliable electricity is one of those conditions.

If, after years of warnings, years of outages, and years of bipartisan control, our leaders still cannot ensure one of the most basic necessities of modern life, then perhaps the place to begin solving New Jersey’s problems is not with another commission, another study, or another press conference.

Perhaps it begins with new leadership.

Because no one should live in a state where government failure has become the expectation.

The only thing New Jersey families can rely on is the unreliability of its government.

But another statement by the Assemblyman deserves even greater attention.

On June 28, the New Jersey Globe reported that Assemblyman Inganamort argued that “silence is consent” while criticizing New Jersey’s environmental movement.

Perhaps he is right.

Silence can be powerful. Public officials often communicate as much by what they refuse to say as by what they choose to say. When leaders remain silent in the face of wrongdoing, inconsistency, or political convenience, that silence can speak volumes.

But if “silence is consent” is truly a principle, then it must apply equally to everyone—not only when criticizing Democrats, but also when evaluating Republicans. Otherwise, it is not a principle and may even seem…hypocritical.

Republicans often remind voters that principles matter. They tell us that character matters. They insist that leadership requires courage.

Then let us test that proposition. Not by examining what Republicans say about Democrats. Rather, by examining what Republicans say—or do not say—about themselves.

Whether one agrees with every example below is not the point. The question is much simpler:

Is the same standard being applied consistently?

If Silence Is Consent...

...where was the criticism when Sussex County Republican Chris Carney proudly accepted the recent endorsement of the New Jersey AFL-CIO as he campaigns for Sussex County Clerk?

This is the same organization that endorsed Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Kamala Harris, Mikie Sherill, Phil Murphy, Cory Booker, Rebecca Bennett, Josh Gottheimer, and numerous other Democratic candidates whose policies Republicans routinely condemn.

Political endorsements are never accidental. Organizations endorse candidates because they believe those candidates are more likely to advance their interests.

Where was the eloquence?

Where was the outrage?

Where were the Facebook performances?

Where was the demand for accountability?

Silence.

If Silence Is Consent...

...where was the criticism of Sussex County Commissioner Chris Carney when he publicly called a Frankford school board member who was opposed him for Sussex County Commissioner a “bitch”?

Where was the eloquence?

Where was the outrage?

Where were the Facebook performances?

Where was the demand for accountability?

Silence.

If Silence Is Consent...

...where was the criticism of now Sussex County Senator Parker Space (LD24) when he publicly called his opponent Kate Matteson a “bitch” in their 2017 NJ Assembly campaign?

Actually, the only person who called Space out for his vulgar comment was then NJ Governor Chris Christie.

Other than from Christie…

Where was the eloquence?

Where was the outrage?

Where were the Facebook performances?

Where was the demand for accountability?

Silence.

If Silence Is Consent...

...where was the criticism when Sussex County Commissioner Jack Degroot recently publicly celebrated attending the New Jersey League of Conservation Voters Gala?

This was not a politically neutral civic event.

It was the signature fundraising event of one of New Jersey’s most influential progressive advocacy organizations—one that regularly supports Democratic candidates and promotes policies Republicans claim to oppose.

Where was the eloquence?

Where was the outrage?

Where were the Facebook performances?

Where was the demand for accountability?

Silence.

If Silence Is Consent...

...where was the criticism when Republicans remained largely silent about their own party’s role in creating New Jersey’s gas tax escalator?

Republicans campaign every election season promising lower taxes, transparency, and accountability while saying very little about how their own party actually helped create this system.

The automatic gas tax increase mechanism allowing Trenton bureaucrats to raise the gas tax without a legislative vote was created with Republican support from its very own Senate minority leader at that time, Steve Oroho (LD24). In effect, allowing “taxation without representation.”

Even more striking, when the legislation was being advanced, then-local official Dawn Fantasia, who was looking for upward political advancement, assisted Oroho by publicly promoting the proposal, and herself, as something necessary for New Jersey.

However, today, she frequently presents herself as a champion of taxpayers and criticizes tax increases adopted without adequate legislative review.

She complained about receiving a 376-page state budget “loaded with tax hikes in the middle of the night”, arguing that legislators deserve transparency and sufficient time to review tax legislation before voting.

Apparently, she is unhappy about tax hikes that she had no opportunity to review and address. It is truly a shame that she does not feel the same about the gas tax hikes that occur automatically without her, or any legislator’s, review or input. One would call that hypocritical.

If Silence Is Consent...

...where was the criticism when members of the Legislature accepted a 67% percent pay raise while New Jersey families continued struggling under the nation’s highest property taxes and one of America’s highest costs of living?

Republicans routinely criticize government spending. They criticize waste and lack of affordability. However, they were silent when it benefited them personally, like a 67% pay increase. That is a pretty good reason to stay quiet and off the radar.

Accountability should begin at home.

The easiest speech any politician can ever give is one attacking the opposing party.

Every Republican can criticize Democrats. Every Democrat can criticize Republicans.

That requires very little courage.

The true measure of political character is whether someone is willing to apply the same standards to friends that they demand of foes.

That is where principles are tested.

Assemblyman Inganamort may have unintentionally stated one of the most important truths in politics.

Silence does matter.

It often communicates approval.

It sometimes communicates fear.

It frequently communicates political convenience.

But it almost always communicates hypocrisy.

If silence truly is consent, then Republicans must begin asking what their own silence has communicated.

Assemblyman Inganamort was right about one thing.

Words matter… and so does silence.

But principles become principles only when they are applied consistently, or they mean nothing.

If “silence is consent” applies when environmental organizations fail to criticize Democrats, then it must also apply when Republicans remain silent about their own as well.

Republicans objected to both the process and the spending. They argued that legislators had less than two hours to review hundreds of pages of budget legislation before late-night committee votes. They offered amendments. They posted on social media. They criticized the record spending. They voted no.

However, two Republicans who represent parts of Ocean and Monmouth Counties, State Sen. Robert Singer (R-Lakewood) and Assemblyman Sean Kean (R-Wall), even voted with the Democrats to approve the budget. Now, the Democrats can claim it was a bi-partisan accomplishment. Others will label it hypocrisy.

But the budget itself is not the real issue.

The real issue is why did the Democratic leaders appeared perfectly comfortable moving forward exactly as they did.

Which raises a far more important question:

Why did they not hesitate even a little?

Most Republicans answer that question by pointing to the Democratic supermajority arguing that they did not have to.

While probably true, that just explains how Democrats passed the budget. It does not explain why they appeared so politically comfortable doing so.

Representative government was never intended to function only through elections every few years. It was designed to function through continuous accountability.

And accountability begins with something rarely discussed anymore:

Hesitation in order to consider the consequences before acting.

Government should hesitate and think twice before exercising power.

It should hesitate and think twice before approving the largest budget in state history.

It should hesitate and think twice before asking taxpayers to finance even more spending.

It should hesitate and think twice before expanding its authority.

It is one of the greatest protections from government that the people possess.

Why?

Because government does not own political power.

It temporarily holds that power in trust for the people.

The purpose of an opposition party is not simply to vote “no” after legislation has already been written. Its purpose is to create enough public scrutiny and enough political consequence that those entrusted with power “hesitate and think twice” before exercising it.

Effective representative democracies rely not only on governing parties but also on effective opposition parties. Several core functions of an opposition include scrutinizing legislation before enactment, developing policy alternatives, informing public debate, coordinating legislative strategy, and increasing accountability through sustained oversight.

Evaluating an opposition therefore involves more than counting seats in a legislature. Questions such as whether it shapes the public agenda, influences legislative outcomes, maintains organizational discipline, or presents coherent alternatives provide one way to assess its institutional effectiveness.

The recent budget process in New Jersey offers a case study to consider these questions and most likely conclude that the NJ GOP engages in little to none of those functions. It has become an irrelevant, impotent shell of an organization that exists in name only at this point.

Looking beyond any single budget or election, these broader institutional questions remain relevant regardless of which party holds power. A healthy democracy depends not only on competitive elections but also on meaningful scrutiny, public debate, and the capacity of governing parties to respond to criticism and alternative proposals.

Without such hesitation or potential consequences, accountability begins to disappear.

Without accountability, government naturally becomes more comfortable exercising power.

The recently adopted budget is simply the latest example.

Every governing majority responds to political incentives.

If there is little political cost to passing another record budget as in this case, why would any governing majority voluntarily restrain itself?

That brings us to the question almost no one in New Jersey is asking.

Who Keeps the Democrats Awake at Night?

Think about it.

Which Republican consistently forces Democrats to hesitate and consider the political consequences about something they consider doing?

Which Republican makes them lose sleep the night before a controversial vote?

Which Republican makes them stop and ask:

“Can we politically afford to do this?”

Can you name one?

If you struggled to answer that question, perhaps you have identified the real problem.

Whether one agreed or disagreed with every decision made by former Governor Chris Christie is beside the point. During his administration, Democratic leaders understood that every major initiative would face relentless public scrutiny and determined political opposition. They had to account for him or discount him at their own peril.

The same principle applied to Governor Tom Kean. While his style differed from Christie’s, he became a political leader whose credibility, effectiveness, and public standing commanded respect across party lines. Democrats understood that ignoring him carried political consequences.

Nationally, former Speaker Newt Gingrich fundamentally changed the political landscape by forcing a governing majority to respond to a disciplined, organized, and unapologetic opposition. Whether one agreed with his agenda or not, Democrats could not afford to dismiss him.

That was not fear of personalities. It was respect for political consequences.

Who fills that role in New Jersey today?

If no one comes to mind, then perhaps the greatest advantage Democrats possess is not their supermajority.

Rather, it is the absence of an opposition capable of creating meaningful political consequences.

Republicans frequently whine about why Democrats continue passing legislation conservatives oppose.

I believe they should consider the question:

What reason have Republicans given Democrats to hesitate and think twice before doing so?

What consequences have the Republicans prepared for such actions?

Until those questions are answered, we should not expect different results in Trenton.

Government rarely restrains itself. It responds to incentives.

The first responsibility of an opposition party is not simply to oppose. It is to ensure that those entrusted with power never become too comfortable exercising it.

Representative government does not depend upon good intentions.

It depends upon accountability.

And accountability begins with hesitation and forcing the other side to think twice about what it is doing or face potential political consequences.

FOX News became necessary when Mainstream Media had edited out alternative opinions to the point where what it presented began to seem predictable, even to those who agreed with the point of view being advanced. That’s bad journalism on top of being a bad business model.

Predictability is boring.

Good journalism isn’t overly curated. It is interesting because it presents the clash of ideas that is the essence of human experience. Didacticism may have a place in lectures to students or a willing religious audience, but it can become propaganda when incorporated into journalism.

Good journalism isn’t didactic and it isn’t afraid of words. Every writer has biases and sees the world through their own unique perspective. That’s why editors must find other writers with other perspectives for balance, lest their publications devolve into simply an unregulated means of communicating some interest group’s lobbying efforts.

The Mainstream Media gave rise to FOX News by creating the need for it. Of course, as soon as it dominated a national conservative audience, FOX News itself became a kind of Mainstream Media for that audience – didactic, propagandistic, shutting out opinions that disagreed with the agenda of its corporate masters.

Now the GOP establishment in New Jersey appears to be trying to coordinate its own “Mainstream Media” propaganda apparatus in advance of the 2027 elections. Like the goal of all such efforts, it wants to protect the status quo, in this case the remnant of legislative incumbents who make up the rump caucuses of their respective chambers.

All electoral victories are built upon the mathematics of addition. The politics of bossism – the kind practiced by the GOP establishment in New Jersey – depends on something else entirely. It is built around a theory of subtraction – exclusivity, the private club.

With this theory of subtraction, “winning” doesn’t mean victory on election day, it means the status quo staying in power. And why not? New Jersey’s part-time legislators just got a 67% pay raise (legislators saw the salaries for their part-time jobs jump from $49,000 to $82,000). Being a part-time legislator with a full-time salary is a pretty cush deal. Even more so if you are a member of a minority that can claim not being responsible for anything that happens in Trenton.

Electoral winners add to their circles. Electoral losers (but cash winners) exclude potential support from their circles – especially if they want to continue along with the well-paid minority status quo.

That was the first giveaway when a group of the state’s center-right players formed a group called NJ COC. It’s a private club that meets monthly to praise “elite Legislator[s]”. Yes, they use that term. NJ COC calls itself a “club” and its mission statement is to “celebrate, elevate, and platform” legislators who, in the opinion of the club, “demonstrate outspoken principled leadership on conservative issues.”

By the way, in addition to that 67% pay increase, Trenton legislators got an extra $50,000 to hire people to make them look good. NJ COC is there to help augment this increase in public relations funding.

The second giveaway has been the refusal by Save Jersey – NJ COC’s organizer – to acknowledge requests to consider publishing opinions that might run counter to the status quo playbook for the maintenance of incumbents at next year’s legislative elections. This has genuinely surprised many grassroots conservatives, who have always considered Save Jersey to be an ally. This extraordinary lack of courtesy has left many perplexed.

For example, the New Jersey Property Taxpayers’ Coalition has circulated a resolution to local governments that asks the Legislature to prevent an increase in the state tax on gasoline by calling for the repeal of the gas tax escalator. A decade ago, the Legislature passed a Transportation Trust Fund (TTF) bailout that allowed legislators to shirk their responsibilities by handing over the power to raise the tax on gasoline to Trenton bureaucrats.

New Jersey’s gas tax escalator is a spit in the face of our nation’s founders. 250 years ago, they fought a revolution over the principle of “no taxation without representation”. In New Jersey today, “taxation without representation” is uni-party policy.

Dozens of local governments have passed the “repeal the gas tax escalator” resolution.

Save Jersey once campaigned against the TTF bailout and higher taxes on gasoline. Now they have ignored grassroots efforts of local governments and groups like the New Jersey Property Taxpayers’ Coalition to prevent a gas tax increase. They won’t even return a telephone call or an email.

In contrast to spiking the “repeal the gas tax escalator” story, Save Jersey gave front page coverage to two local governments that adopted resolutions opposing “recent sanctuary statehood and anti-ICE laws signed by Governor Mikie Sherrill and urged their repeal.”

Why ignore dozens of resolutions and write about two?

Because the status quo loves the way things are and they don’t want to change anything. Status quo legislators like not having responsibility for supporting or opposing legislation to raise the gas tax. This way they can blame it on the Trenton bureaucrats that they empowered to raise taxes.

A 67% pay raise… for a lot less responsibility.

We hope the folks at Save Jersey will remember their former opposition to the TTF bailout and the successive gas tax hikes it has precipitated and those it will cause in the future unless the gas tax escalator is repealed. Voters don’t want higher gas prices – and higher gas taxes raise the price of gasoline.

But apparently average voters getting what they want isn’t high on the status quo’s list of priorities…

Now, remember what that Princeton University study by Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page found in 2014:

“The preferences of the average American appear to have only a miniscule, near zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.”

If you want an answer to “why Donald Trump” or “why Zohran Mamdani”, you will find it in Gilens and Page. The reform group, RepresentUs, made a video that nicely sums it up:

Corruption is Legal in America – YouTube

Money isn’t speech. Corporations are not people. Money is a rude blunt instrument used to shout down ordinary citizens, to corrupt the Republic, and destroy the people’s faith in representative democracy.

50 years ago, at the time of America’s bicentennial, liberal reform movements like Common Cause were seeing success in hamstringing monied special interests by making the funding of elections more transparent. The Federal Election Commission (FEC) had been created by Congress in 1974 and officially opened its doors in April 1975. The New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission (NJELEC) was established two years earlier, in April 1973. It was a great era of public reform.

Concurrent with these reforms, there emerged within the Republican Party a revival of interest in the ideology of free market economics. Ronald Reagan and his “supply-side” economics won the day and his politics of addition won 49 states in 1984.

In recent years, the achievements of that era have been battered senseless by the political status quo of both major parties – both in Washington, DC, and in Trenton. Within the Republican Party, the political class has swapped the “free market” for subsidies for their favorite (the ones who fund them) industries and interest groups. In a word, crony capitalism. Establishment Democrats are no different and often share the same interest groups with Republicans.

Crony-capitalism is now the shared ideology of the status quo, of the Trenton uni-party. And when money and power use the political establishment to block the redress of grievances, when liberal reform fails, you get movements like rightwing populism and democratic socialism.

You can see the uni-party at work in the way status quo Republicans cheer on crony-capitalist Democrats:

If we are ever to rediscover our talent for political reform and reignite the engine of free market economics, we must break the stranglehold that crony capitalism has on the political establishment. In New Jersey, crony capitalism is the beating heart of Trenton’s uni-party.

Because no matter how loud some in the status quo might shout, crony capitalism isn’t “conservative”. It is simply corrupt.

That is why endorsements matter.

The New Jersey AFL-CIO has endorsed Republican Chris Carney in his campaign for Sussex County Clerk and Republican Congressman Chris Smith for reelection while simultaneously endorsing Democrats including Cory Booker for the United States Senate and Rebecca Bennett for Congress.

Those endorsements should cause Republicans across New Jersey to ask an obvious question:

Why did one of the Democratic Party’s most influential political organizations conclude that these Republican candidates were most likely to advance its interests?

If these candidates consider themselves conservative Republicans, why is one of America’s largest progressive labor organizations endorsing them? What exactly do they expect in return? Political endorsements are a two-way relationship.

That question deserves an answer—not because accepting an endorsement is inherently improper, but because political endorsements often reflect an organization’s judgment that a particular candidate is more likely to advance its priorities.

The AFL-CIO is not a conservative organization. It is one of the Democratic Party’s largest political allies. It spends millions helping elect Democrats at every level of government to advance a progressive legislative agenda. Nationally, the AFL-CIO has enthusiastically backed policies expanding the size and cost of government and increasing federal spending.

Among the candidates it has endorsed over the years are Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Phil Murphy, Mikie Sherrill, Cory Booker, Josh Gottheimer, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and many other prominent Democrats.

Republicans have long criticized organized labor for supporting policies that expand government, increase taxes, strengthen public-sector unions, impose burdensome regulations, and promote progressive priorities.

If those criticisms are sincere, then Republicans should also be willing to ask why those same organizations increasingly find certain Republican candidates worthy of endorsement.

We understand why Republican candidates accept these endorsements. Powerful organizations bring campaign contributions, independent expenditures, volunteers, mailers, and political influence. Every serious candidate wants to win, and endorsements can help make that happen.

When Republicans receive endorsements from organizations that traditionally support Democratic candidates, the explanations are often predictable. Some argue that the endorsement simply proves they are such exceptional candidates that even traditionally liberal organizations recognize their leadership. Others suggest that by accepting these endorsements they are somehow building relationships that will gradually move those organizations toward more conservative positions.

Both explanations are wrong and neither answers the central question.

Political organizations do not issue endorsements as awards for good character or exceptional public service. They issue endorsements because they believe a particular candidate is more likely to advance the organization’s priorities than the available alternatives.

Likewise, there is no reason to believe that an organization with a decades-long progressive political agenda will fundamentally change its philosophy because it endorses a handful of Republicans. Organizations like the AFL-CIO do not abandon their core priorities. They endorse Republican candidates when they conclude doing so advances their own strategic interests. And endorsements like these are strategic calculations meant to favor the organization.

Winning elections is important. No serious candidate runs to lose.

But political parties are supposed to stand for something beyond simply winning elections. They ask voters to support them because they claim to represent a distinct set of principles and will address the needs of the people. If those principles are set aside whenever political advantage presents itself, they cease to be principles at all.

There is an old saying: “He who pays the piper calls the tune.” Whether or not that saying always proves true, it reflects an important reality of politics. Organizations do not invest money, volunteers, campaign mailers, and political credibility in candidates without believing those investments will advance their own objectives.

That raises a perfectly reasonable question:

What did the AFL-CIO see in these Republican candidates that convinced it they would best advance the organization’s interests?

Winning an election may explain why a candidate accepts an endorsement. It does not answer whether accepting that endorsement is consistent with the conservative principles Republicans routinely invoke when criticizing Democrats.

Just because you can do something does not mean you should.

This issue extends well beyond one county or one election.

Across New Jersey, Republican organizations frequently describe themselves as defenders of conservative principles while condemning “RINOs,” liberals, and anyone viewed as insufficiently conservative. Party leaders regularly insist that political associations matter and that voters should judge candidates by the organizations with which they choose to associate.

If that standard is legitimate—and many Republicans believe it is—then it should apply consistently.

It should not suddenly disappear whenever the candidate happens to be politically connected or part of the local party establishment.

Without consistency, there can be no credibility.

Standards that apply only to political opponents are not standards at all.

Republican voters have every right to ask what qualities, positions, voting records, or public statements convinced the AFL-CIO that these Republican candidates would best advance the organization’s interests. They have every right to ask whether those endorsements reflect ideological agreement, political pragmatism, or something else entirely.

Those questions are not acts of disloyalty.

They are acts of accountability.

Political parties exist because they claim to stand for identifiable principles. Those principles lose their meaning when they are enforced only against political opponents.

If political endorsements matter—and they clearly do—then Republicans should apply the same standards regardless of whose name appears on the ballot.

The question is not whether these endorsements help candidates win. They probably do.

The real question is whether Republican voters are willing to ignore them simply because the candidate has an “R” next to his or her name.

If Republicans expect voters to believe that conservative principles still matter, then those principles must be applied equally—to allies and opponents alike.

Otherwise, conservatism becomes little more than campaign rhetoric—invoked when convenient and ignored when politically inconvenient.

History teaches that institutions rarely lose credibility all at once.

They lose it gradually—one compromise, one inconsistency, one double standard at a time—until people simply stop believing what they say, and walk away.

Political parties are no exception.

Credibility is earned over years of consistent conduct. Trust is built over years but both can be lost overnight in a moment of hypocrisy.

Every time hypocrisy is excused because the candidate wears the right party label, that credibility and trust becomes harder to recover.

When principles become optional, credibility becomes impossible. And once credibility is lost, winning elections becomes almost impossoble…just like earning back the public’s trust.

That is the challenge confronting the future of the Republican Party in New Jersey.

Because the uncomfortable truth is this:

New Jersey does not have, and has not had for quite some time, a functioning opposition party in the state Republican Party. Rather, the GOP has a Facebook posting operation posting pictures and quotes desperately trying to accumulate “likes” assuming that “likes must equal support”.

A political system cannot work when one party governs and the other only reacts. A healthy democracy requires transparency and accountability, not only from the other party, but also from within its own. Transparency and accountability requires an opposition willing to ask difficult questions about relevant issues. But in New Jersey:

The Democratic Party governs.
The Republican Party reacts.

The Democratic Party sets the agenda.
The Republican Party comments after the fact.

The Democratic Party advances its priorities.
The Republican Party issues statements that change nothing.

Then everyone acts surprised when nothing changes. This has become our modus operandi, our norm.

Meanwhile, the cost-of-living crisis in New Jersey continues to accelerate. Today, even with both parents working, and many relying on multiple jobs, families continue struggling to keep pace with all sorts of taxes, fees, housing, childcare, transportation, utilities, healthcare, and the highest property taxes in the nation. Young families are finding it increasingly difficult to purchase homes, while retirees increasingly consider whether they can afford to remain in the state.

It is an affordability collapse. The consequences are not theoretical. They are actual.

People are leaving. Businesses are leaving. Yet the political class continues to behave as though nothing is fundamentally wrong.

According to recent census-based analysis, New Jersey experienced a net domestic migration loss of more than 35,000 residents in 2024 alone and nearly 200,000 residents since 2020. Other data shows more than 214,000 people left New Jersey for another state in 2024 while only about 151,000 moved in from elsewhere in the country. New Jersey ranked near the bottom nationally in net domestic migration.

Businesses are following this trend.

Just this month, Samsung announced that it will move its U.S. headquarters from New Jersey to Texas. Reports indicate the move could impact approximately 1,000 jobs. Around the same time, ExxonMobil announced plans to move its legal domicile from New Jersey to Texas, citing a more business-friendly environment.

Why are companies choosing to relocate elsewhere? Why are residents choosing to relocate elsewhere?

Every family that leaves takes purchasing power with it. Every business that relocates takes jobs, investment, and opportunity with it. Every retiree who departs takes decades of community involvement, volunteerism, and tax revenue with them.

The cost of bad policy is not measured solely in budgets and spreadsheets. It is measured in opportunities lost, businesses never opened, jobs never created, and neighbors who no longer live here.

Unfortunately, our elected officials in Trenton and those in political leadership seem capable—or willing—to seriously challenge the conditions driving them out.

But even more problematic is that not only does New Jersey lack an opposition party, it has an opposition party that often undermines itself as well.

For example, recent comments by Sussex County GOP Chairman Joe Labarbera illustrate the problem. In what promises to be an extremely competitive race in NJ’s CD-07, Labarbera apparently stated to Riley Yates of NJ.com, regarding Congressman Tom Kean, Jr.’s absence, that “it’s the best kept secret in the world” and that “we know more about aliens than we know what’s going on with him.”

While Democrats attack Tom Kean Jr. over his extended absence from Congress, Republican leaders should focus attention on affordability, taxes, energy costs, and the issues affecting New Jersey families. Instead, some have chosen to amplify the very narratives Democrats are already using against Republican candidates.

Further, consider the recent inquiries by the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission involving county political organizations across the state.

Whether those inquiries ultimately reveal serious problems or simply routine compliance issues is beside the point. The opportunity was obvious.

A serious opposition party would have used the moment to applaud the demand transparency, accountability, and public disclosure from every political organization—Republican and Democratic alike.

Instead, Sussex GOP Chairman Labarbera published an article in the New Jersey Globe criticizing ELEC as “going rogue” and attacking the agency’s actions as a deliberate attack on democracy rather than either saying nothing or commending ELEC for its apparent even-handed approach, which may actually reveal something beneficial to the GOP. Now, it begs the question of “so why is the Sussex GOP, and only the Sussex GOP, protesting this ELEC event so vigorously?” This will not help the GOP in its struggle to build credibility.

In politics, opportunities matter. Too often however, New Jersey Republicans seem determined to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by shooting themselves in the foot and either missing opportunities or focusing on the wrong issue.

In the absence of political accountability, citizen organizations typically have to step in to fill the vacuum and address the needs of the people.

The New Jersey Property Taxpayers Coalition has done what elected officials will not.

It has advanced resolutions to municipalities across the state calling for the repeal of the automatic gas tax escalator—a mechanism that increases fuel taxes without a direct vote of the Legislature.

It has also advanced resolutions defending property taxpayers, local control, and community character against state-level preemption of municipal authority over data center development.

It should not fall to civic groups to do the work of a political opposition. But in New Jersey today, it increasingly does.

Which raises the central question:

If grassroots organizations are leading the debate on taxes, energy, and local control—what exactly are elected officials doing? Especially after recently giving themselves a 67% pay increase.

Because voters are not asking for miracles. They are asking for basic competence.

Right now, they do not have it.

And when there is no opposition, there is no accountability.

When there is no accountability, there is no restraint.

And when there is no restraint, decline becomes policy by default.

And until that changes, the trajectory of the state will not change either.

The problem facing New Jersey is not just that Democrats win elections. The problem is that Republicans have stopped making them earn their victories.

Voters deserve more than a political system where one side governs and the other side occasionally complains. Because when nobody asks the questions, nobody has to provide the answers.

And when nobody is held accountable, the problems remain.

Until that changes, New Jersey residents should not be surprised if the same problems continue to dominate public life year after year while Trenton congratulates itself for progress that many families struggle to ever see.

After learning of these developments through media reports, this writer, a duly elected member of the Sussex County Republican Committee representing Sparta District 1, submitted a straightforward request to the Committee Secretary seeking copies of any ELEC correspondence received by the Committee and asking whether the full Committee had been informed of the matter.

The Committee Secretary responded professionally and indicated that she would work to provide the requested information swiftly.

That request should not have been controversial.

Committee members have both a right and a responsibility to be informed about matters that may affect the organization they were elected to help govern. Regulatory inquiries, requests for records, subpoenas, audits, potential fines, legal expenses, and compliance issues are not insignificant matters. They directly concern the affairs of the Committee.

What followed, however, was not the production of the requested documents.

Instead, Sussex County Republican Chairman Joe Labarbera issued a bizarre response filled with personal attacks, accusations of harassment, and demands for resignation. What was notably absent from his response was an answer to the only question that mattered:

Will the Committee members be provided with the ELEC documents?

The irony is difficult to ignore.

While Committee members are being denied access to the ELEC correspondence, Labarbera publicly published an article in the New Jersey Globe criticizing ELEC and attacking the agency’s actions as a deliberate attack on democracy.

Nobody asked for Labarbera’s opinion regarding ELEC. They asked for the ELEC documents.

Before Committee members are expected to accept the Chairman’s characterization of events, they should be permitted to review the underlying documents and draw their own conclusions.

That is not an unreasonable request.

Nor is it disloyalty or harassment.

It is called transparency.

Whether one agrees or disagrees with ELEC is not the issue.

The issue is whether duly elected Committee members have the right to know what communications have been received by the organization they were elected to help govern.

We believe they do.

This issue is particularly important because the Sussex County Republican Committee has previously incurred ELEC penalties without the broader membership being fully informed of the circumstances that gave rise to those penalties. That history makes transparency more important, not less.

If fines, legal expenses, compliance costs, or other liabilities may ultimately affect the Committee treasury, Committee members have a legitimate interest in understanding the circumstances giving rise to those obligations.

The Committee’s funds do not belong to the Chairman.

The Committee’s affairs do not belong to the Chairman.

The Committee itself is not the personal property of the Chairman or any officer.

The Committee belongs to its duly elected members and, ultimately, to the Republican voters of Sussex County.

Conservatives routinely demand transparency, accountability, and openness from government. We criticize public officials who withhold information and tell citizens to simply trust them.

Those principles should not end when we look in the mirror.

If there is nothing to hide, there should be no objection to providing the correspondence.

If there is a legitimate legal reason the documents cannot be disclosed, that explanation should be communicated to the Committee, preferably through legal counsel.

What should not happen is for legitimate questions regarding Committee affairs to be met with personal attacks while the underlying issue remains unanswered.

The request remains remarkably simple: Just provide the documents.

Not talking points.

Not personal attacks.

Not demands for resignation.

Just the documents.

Provide the documents.

Let the Committee review them.

Let the members decide for themselves.

“For the last few years, I’ve had this sense that everything I learned as a kid about how America’s government works is completely wrong. But I had no idea how bad things actually were until I saw this one graph… so, if you ever felt like your opinion doesn’t matter and that the government doesn’t really care what you think – well, you’re right.”

Corruption is Legal in America – YouTube

The Princeton study analyzed data collected from a large, diverse set of policy cases going back twenty years, in which national surveys of the public asked questions about proposed policy. A total of 1,923 policies in all. The study concluded:

“The preferences of the average American appear to have only a miniscule, near zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.”

It’s hard for our political class to hear when they have so much money stuffed in their ears.

Lobbyists are the nexus between money and politicians, between money and government. They make the deals and, in many cases, they even write the laws that our elected representatives propose, and the regulations imposed by government.

For example, this firm of lobbyists recently bragged about their role in expanding data centers in New Jersey:

The story, which is posted on the lobbyists’ website, goes on to explain how they “played a critical role in facilitating the partnership and navigating the legislative and regulatory landscape as well as site selection for the data center.”

And more data centers could be on the way. The Porzio lobby firm recently reported taking $72,000 from another data center developer, Dewberry Engineering. Below is from the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission (NJELEC) which is responsible for regulating lobbying in New Jersey:

Former Senate Republican Leader Steve Oroho is the Director of Legislative Strategy for the lobbyist firm Porzio Governmental Affairs. Yes, the “father of the gas tax” has reinvented himself as a Trenton lobbyist.

Tucked away in the northwest part of the state, Sussex County is notorious for providing Republican support for Democrat tax increases. As an Assemblyman, Bob Littell provided the crucial vote to pass Governor Brendan Byrne’s state income tax. Senator Oroho pushed through the Transportation Trust Fund (TTF) bailout that increased the gas tax – taking New Jersey from one of the lowest state gas taxes in the nation to one of the highest.

Data center development is a controversial issue in New Jersey. It has produced strong reactions from local voters/taxpayers.

Yesterday, Governor Mikie Sherrill addressed the issue and suggested “guardrails” to constrain data center development. Zach Blackburn of the New Jersey Globe wrote: “Sherrill wants legislation requiring water, energy usage reports; wants data centers to build their own electricity sources.”

The proliferation of data centers has become a major political issue across the country, with many voters believing the centers are to blame for an increase in energy prices.

“For years, smaller data centers have been scattered in office parks across our state, each needing maybe a megawatt of energy to operate, and they connect to the grid to get it,” Sherrill said. “But today’s data centers sometimes use 300 megawatts, enough to power entire towns. That skyrocketing demand is outpacing supply and jacking up all of our electric bills. Not on my watch, not on your backs.”

Polls of New Jersey voters have found skepticism of the facilities. One poll found a majority don’t want data centers in their towns, and another found a majority want a moratorium on the construction of new data centers.

Governor Sherrill might be too late. Lobbyists paid by data center developers have been extending their reach throughout New Jersey well in advance of her efforts. If voters/taxpayers want to protect the value of the homes for which they pay the highest property taxes in America, they are going to need to organize and outshout the lobbyists and the developers’ money.

They are going to need to become citizen lobbyists for their own interests.

But if you are a community targeted by corporate interests determined to develop one of these behemoths, immediate concerns include the effects it will have on resource consumption – specifically water usage and energy demand. Cooling the servers in these facilities requires millions of gallons of water daily, while a single facility can consume as much electricity as 100,000 households.

The concern is genuinely bipartisan. MAGA Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) and liberal Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) have developed legislation to ensure that consumers will not get hit with higher utility rates because of data centers. Data centers are expected to eat up 15 percent of America’s available electricity in just a few years. That will create unprecedented demand and, as any free-market conservative knows, when demand exceeds the available supply, prices naturally increase.

Unfortunately, the interests who want to force data center development on local communities are extremely well-funded. Over the weekend, the New Jersey Monitor did an excellent piece on the issue. When journalist David Lightman asked what was preventing Congress from addressing the development, MAGA’s Josh Hawley spelled it out: “M-o-n–e-y.”

Lightman wrote:

OpenSecrets, a nonpartisan organization that tracks money in politics, found “The electric manufacturing and equipment sector, including firms like Microsoft and Oracle, has poured more than $226 million into lobbying activity in 2025.”

Yesterday, the Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church issued a papal encyclical “warning leaders to safeguard humanity from A.I.’s most disruptive effects.” The Pope wrote, “The pursuit of greater profits cannot justify choices that systematically sacrifice jobs.”

The NJGOP has an opportunity to be the Republican Party’s voice in this debate. To take soundings and develop a cautious, united position on the development of data centers that the entire party could embrace.

Unfortunately, some GOP leaders in New Jersey have already gone off, half-cocked, in their own directions. Let’s take Sussex County as an example.

After a data center developer was rebuffed by Andover Township, Sussex County Commissioner Director Jill Space held a meeting of mayors to “educate” local elected officials on the benefits of data centers. Being the sort of people who fart in church and blame someone else, the leaders of the Sussex GOP always keep a hatchet man around to push unpopular agendas like the solar scam, various pipelines, mega-warehouse schemes, and the TTF bailout that hiked the gas tax. This time is no different, with the instrument of choice a particularly dull blade in the form of Sussex GOP Chairman Joe Labarbera.

In fact, earlier this year, Labarbera was working for an A.I. data company out of San Francisco. While holding down a fulltime, taxpayer-funded job as the Dean of Accountability at Warren County Community College (WCCC) and getting a lucrative break on his property taxes for operating a “cattle farm”, Labarbera was also the corporate vice president of “Government Affairs” for a company pushing a global digital national identity product.

On top of all that, local elected officials in Sussex County have complained that Labarbera is lobbying them “almost daily” trying to sell the benefits of data center development. Where does Labarbera find the time?

Labarbera and other Sussex GOPers are using talking points about the “threat of China” and other patriotic themes to make their argument. And, of course, they claim that tax revenues from data center development will balance out the negative effects. Unfortunately for them, this is essentially the same argument used for the solar scam, various pipelines, mega-warehouse schemes, and the TTF bailout that hiked the gas tax. Folks just don’t believe it anymore.

Nevertheless, Sussex Republicans are serious about purging anyone who doesn’t walk the walk on data center development. When two Hardyston councilmen – both Republican incumbents – dared oppose data center development in their town, Senator Parker Space and Commissioner Director Jill Space recruited their own relative, Robin Marotta, and a running mate to challenge the Republican incumbents in the June 2nd primary.

Robin Marotta is the mother of Sussex County GOP Vice Chairman Billy Marotta. He is also the Republican State Committeeman for Sussex County.

Commissioner Space and Marotta are members of the New Jersey Republican State Committee – the NJGOP. How many other members support data center development regardless of the views expressed by the people who live there?

To be continued…

In March, Nick D’Agostino, a former school board member in Sussex County, wrote to the Joint Committee on Ethical Standards. He pointed out to us how the Legislature doesn’t make it easy for average citizens to file ethics complaints. There isn’t a link to file a complaint on the Legislature’s website, and the website doesn’t provide an address for the Committee.

So, D’Agostino did what he thought would work. He wrote to the four top legislators in New Jersey – the Senate President, Assembly Speaker, and the Minority Leaders of both chambers. D’Agostino emailed their offices and he sent his letters by certified mail.

The letters were delivered and he got back all four certified receipts in the mail (below are two of them):

Then nothing…

After waiting two months, he contacted Jersey Conservative. On May 11th, we contacted the Office of Legislative Services (OLS). They were very helpful. They confirmed that the Joint Committee on Ethical Standards did not have the complaint, so it appears none of the legislators’ offices had forwarded it. They also provided an address for the Committee and advised that the complaint be resubmitted. OLS was friendly and courteous, the way all such interactions with government should be.

For the record, this is the address a citizen should use when making a complaint:

Office of Legislative Services
Joint Committee on Ethical Standards
PO Box 068
Trenton, New Jersey 08625-0068

The physical address is:
145 West State Street
Trenton, New Jersey 08625

Here is a copy of Nick D’Agostino’s original complaint:

We understand that he has resubmitted his complaint.

But at the same time, Trenton has increasingly embraced the language of “affordability.”

Voters are being told that Trenton understands the pressure facing working and middle-class families and that relief is now a top priority.

But does anybody in Trenton really care?

Recently, New Jersey residents received the clearest indication yet that there remains a major disconnect between the rhetoric coming from Trenton and the policies still being defended there.

As gas prices continue climbing toward crisis levels, Sherrill publicly rejected calls for even a temporary suspension of New Jersey’s gas tax, insisting the revenue is too important to transportation funding.

Food on your table is apparently not as important.

Her response revealed something much larger than a disagreement over one tax.

It exposed a political culture in New Jersey that prioritizes preserving automatic government revenue streams over restoring affordability and accountability for taxpayers.

Government comes first, families...whenever. That’s your problem.

New Jersey’s gas tax is not just high — but is designed to increase automatically without any input from our elected officials.

The gas tax escalator mechanism was simply a clever way for elected officials to avoid having to address and vote on gas tax increases, leaving taxpayers paying more while elected officials avoid having to cast public votes for those increases. Thereby, avoiding any accountability.

That is precisely why the New Jersey Property Taxpayers Coalition launched its statewide Gas Tax Escalator Resolution campaign.

The issue is no longer simply whether taxes are high. We all know they are.

The issue is whether taxes should rise automatically without direct, recorded votes by elected representatives.

That question is now resonating all across New Jersey.

Municipalities throughout the state have already begun passing the Coalition’s Gas Tax Escalator Resolution, signaling growing concern among local officials of both parties regarding affordability, transparency, and legislative accountability.

That development matters because local leaders are increasingly being forced to confront the economic reality their residents face every day.

The contractor driving to job sites.
The commuter filling up multiple times each week.
The senior citizen living on a fixed income.
The small business owner already struggling with transportation, supply, insurance, and labor costs.

For these residents, the gas tax is not an abstract political issue. It is another recurring daily financial burden layered on top of an already overwhelming cost of living crisis.

What makes the current debate even more striking is that calls for fuel tax relief are now emerging nationally as well.

New Jersey Congressman Jeff Van Drew has publicly supported suspending the federal gas tax in order to provide relief to working families dealing with rising fuel prices and broader economic pressures. At the same time, some NJ officials are also now calling for the suspension of the state gas tax.

Regardless of where one stands politically, the larger message is becoming difficult to ignore:

Americans are reaching a financial breaking point.

And that is why the debate surrounding New Jersey’s gas tax has evolved into something far bigger than just transportation funding alone.

It has become symbolic of a broader question:

When government admits an affordability crisis, should its first instinct be to protect itself and its automatic revenue mechanisms?

Or should it protect the people and restore direct accountability to taxpayers struggling under the weight of rising costs?

Taxpayers should also remember that the current structure did not emerge from one political party alone.

The 2016 Transportation Trust Fund legislation — including both the gas tax increase and the automatic escalator mechanism — required bipartisan support to become law. Unfortunately, Republican legislators played a critical role in its passage, including support from then State Senator Steve Oroho (LD24), who apparenly earned the nickname “Darth Oroho” as a result of the impending pain to be inflicted on NJ families.

Also, current Assemblywoman Dawn Fantasia (LD24) lobbied hard for passage of the gas tax while a councilwoman seeking to advance her career by staying in the good graces of Oroho.

Apparently, it worked, and now New Jersey must pay for it.

That history matters because it demonstrates that the affordability crisis New Jersey faces today was not created overnight, nor was it created by one party acting alone. The pain felt by the families of New Jersey was brought on by the coordinated efforts of both Democrats and Republicans, many of whom are still in office.

For years, taxpayers were told that higher taxes, larger funding packages, and “temporary” fixes were necessary sacrifices that would eventually stabilize the system and protect families from even greater burdens later.

Instead, New Jersey families now find themselves paying the highest property taxes and one of the highest income taxes in America while also facing rising fuel costs, rising utility bills, rising insurance costs, and a broader affordability crisis that continues worsening despite repeated promises from Trenton.

This issue will not be solved through rants, slogans or election-year messaging on Facebook, most of which are usually unrelated to the everyday struggles of New Jersey families.

Nor will it be solved rebranding the same governing philosophy that helped create the problem in the first place or by the same people who created the problem in the first place.

The Coalition’s resolution campaign instead seeks to restore a basic principle that should transcend party politics and is relying on the good sense of local elected officials:

If taxes are going to increase on working families, elected officials should at least be required to publicly vote for those increases themselves.

That is not extremism. That is basic representative government.

Across New Jersey, every day more and more local officials are beginning to recognize that principle and are taking action.

And as more municipalities continue joining the conversation, one thing is becoming increasingly clear:

The issue of automatic taxation and affordability in New Jersey is not going away.

Nor should it. We will not let it.

It is growing. We will help it. We must!

The kind who mistakes activity for achievement. Facebook posts for outreach.
Press releases for leadership. Ceremonial gestures for meaningful action.

They flood the legislative board with resolutions, commemorations, symbolic declarations, awareness campaigns, naming ceremonies, and feel-good proposals designed to generate applause while accomplishing absolutely nothing for the people struggling to survive in this state.

It is the political equivalent of cotton candy. In other words “Cotton Candy Politics”.

It looks big.
It look fluffy.
It looks colorful.
But the moment you bite into it, it disappears into nothing.

No substance.
No nourishment.
No value.

And few legislators better embody the culture of cotton candy politics than LD24 Senator Parker Space.

A review of publicly available legislative tracking data paints a revealing picture. While New Jersey families continue drowning under the highest property taxes in America, one of the highest income taxes in America, rising utility bills, skyrocketing fuel costs, unaffordable housing, and a school funding system so convoluted even lawmakers struggle to explain it, Trenton somehow always finds time for another symbolic gesture pretending to be governance.

In fact, according to this tracking data cataloging symbolic and ceremonial bills, Parker Space has earned the distinct “honor and privilege” of standing at the very top of the list.

Quite an achievement.

And apparently, in modern Trenton, this qualifies as serious legislative achievement.

This pattern is not new however.

For years, Trenton politicians have devoted time and energy to symbolic designations and novelty legislation while New Jersey families drown in property taxes and flee the state over affordability.

Some notable highlights from the data tracker include Parker Space helping champion legislation designating the Little Brown Bat as the official state bat of New Jersey. (A1812).

Because naturally, when residents cannot afford groceries, gasoline, electric bills, or housing, the first question keeping taxpayers awake at night is:

“Who will finally stand up for the bats?”

Also under Parker Space’s leadership, the State Legislature designated the Common Eastern Bumble Bee as New Jersey’s official native pollinator. (A1685)

One can only imagine the emotional relief this brought to families opening their property tax bills.

Sadly, Parker Space is hardly alone.

The data tracker prominently displays other sponsors of these types of useless measures, including a former and current GOP minority leader.

Which raises an uncomfortable question:

Why do the voters keep sending representatives to Trenton who seem better at sponsoring useless fluff than addressing issues like affordability, taxation, and government spending?

This is exactly the problem with carnival politics.

Politicians point to symbolic gestures and novelty legislation as evidence of “productivity” while avoiding the real crises driving residents and businesses out of New Jersey.

It is government by distraction.

Bright colors.
Loud applause.
Meaningless symbolism.
And absolutely no relief for the people paying the bills.

New Jersey does not have a symbolism crisis.

It has a leadership crisis.

Families are leaving this state in droves.
Young people cannot afford homes.
Seniors are being taxed out of communities they spent decades building.
Small businesses are suffocating under regulations, inflation, and energy costs.
Municipalities are stretched thin.
Residents are repeatedly told to “pay a little more” while Trenton politicians recently rewarded themselves with massive 67% pay raise.

Yet somehow, lawmakers always seem to have plenty of time to sponsor another ceremonial resolution or symbolic bill that changes absolutely nothing.

That is because cotton candy legislation serves a political purpose.

It creates the illusion of productivity without requiring the courage necessary to confront real problems.

Real reform is difficult.

Real reform creates enemies.
It threatens special interests.
It requires politicians to choose between taxpayers and the political machine they are part of and which protects them.

Symbolic legislation does the opposite. It allows politicians to appear busy while risking, and accomplishing, absolutely nothing.

And where is the urgency when it comes to affordability?

Where is the urgency when the average New Jersey property tax bill now exceeds $10,000?

Where is the urgency on the gas tax escalator that continues hammering working families every time they fill their tanks?

Where is the urgency on school funding reform, government consolidation, spending restraint, or the crushing burden placed on municipalities and taxpayers?

Those fights require political backbone.

Cotton candy politics requires none.

And unfortunately, the problem extends beyond meaningless legislation. Leadership is also about judgment, seriousness, and personal conduct.

That is where the controversies surrounding officials like Parker Space become impossible to ignore.

This is the legislator who drew criticism after appearing in a social media image near a Confederate flag — a symbol many Americans view as deeply divisive and offensive.

This is the legislator who faced backlash after vulgar remarks directed toward a female political opponent became public, even from former Governor Chris Christie.

And that matters because elected office is supposed to demand a higher standard.

Public officials represent entire communities, not merely the loudest corners of their political base.

But increasingly, Trenton is about spectacle not statesmanship.

The modern political environment encourages politicians to become performers rather than problem-solvers. And nowhere is that more obvious than in New Jersey.

Because what is happening in Trenton increasingly resembles a carnival.

The lights are bright.
The slogans are large.
The yappers are loud and demand applause.
The games are rigged.
And the public is constantly distracted with shiny nonsense while the real problems continue getting worse.

Step right up and witness another ceremonial proclamation.
Step right up and witness another meaningless resolution.
Step right up and pretend symbolic politics somehow lowers property taxes or keeps families from leaving New Jersey.

Many legislators seem less interested in governing than auditioning for roles in the political circus.

And while taxpayers struggle to pay mortgages, utility bills, gasoline costs, and grocery prices, Trenton keeps spinning sugar into the shape of leadership and hoping voters mistake it for substance.

The truth is that New Jersey families do not need another performer.

They do not need another press release politician.
They do not need another ceremonial legislator specializing in political theater.
And they certainly do not need more cotton candy politics while the state sinks deeper into economic and fiscal crisis.

They need adults willing to govern.

They need leaders willing to confront:
property taxes
school funding
energy costs
government waste
affordability
infrastructure
and the steady collapse of New Jersey’s middle class.

Because eventually the carnival music stops and the lights go out but the problems remain.

That is the danger of carnival style cotton candy politics.

The crowd stays entertained right up until the moment the tent collapses and the lights go out.

But the problem for New Jersey is that the collapsing tents are families, small businesses, and communities — and the lights going out are the futures of the taxpayers forced to keep funding the circus.