Wanted: Passaic County GOP Chairman to pick candidates

You would think that if a district was considered extremely competitive and vital in giving your party the majority, and you represented 30% of a district's constituents as a party chair, you would have say in candidate selection right? Well not if your name is Scott Rumana.

According to reports on Politicker NJ, the 36th District which includes the Meadowlands area of Bergen County, Nutley in Essex and Passaic in Passaic, is considered a battleground in the war for control of the Assembly in what is highly likely to be the most competitive statewide race since 1997. While Democrats currently hold all three seats, the incumbents, particularly Gary Schaer of Passaic, are thought to be beatable.

Considering that Passaic has kept the district in the Democratic column for the last eight years, and that Republicans like Paul DiGaetano were once successful in winning the old mill city, you'd think that Scott Rumana would try to have some influence over who the nominee would be right? But in a recent PolitickerNJ story on the district's likely candidates, Joel Brizzi of East Rutherford and Carmen Pio Costa of Nutley, Rumana was not mentioned at all, whereas his counterparts Kevin O'Toole and Bob Yudin figured heavily in the selection process. This despite the fact that Nutley is much smaller than Passaic and the only Essex town in the district. Isn't there someone in Passaic who could at least credibly cut 

So where is Scott?  If he is punting responsibility in the 36th, what is he doing to find candidates in the heavily Democratic 34th and 35th, which he also shares with other counties? We need leadership in these critical times, not chairpeople on the side of milk cartons.

It's Quite Taxing that Republicans Don't Repeal the Sales Tax Hike...

You would think that a minority party that could conceivably take power would use every issue possible to win the majority. Particularly when the same issue had lead them to the halls of power not long ago.  And if the individuals in the party didn't remember, shouldn't the party's elders and leadership recall a winning strategy??

In 1990, Governor Jim Florio responded to our nation's last major recession by hiking the sales tax to 7%. This led to mass protest across New Jersey, and a demolition of Democratic representation in the state as grassroots crowds and the skillful state GOP blocked the agenda of a liberal Governor who had gotten 62% of the vote in 1989. The first death knell for Florio was when Republican Frank Catania ousted Democrat Cy Yenarelli in a 1990 special election in a majority-Paterson district. The following year, Catania and his Republicans won a veto-proof super-majority in the Assembly. They won campaigning against the tax and they overturned it, leading to a decade of growth in New Jersey.

The constant watering-down of the GOP's anti-tax, pro-business message allowed increasingly left-wing Democrats to re-take control of the state this decade. As a result, the king of the archliberals, Jon Corzine, hiked the sales tax during a period of national growth over the objections of his own party and to plug an unexplained deficit. The GOP said little about this egregious tax.

About six weeks after this tax was imposed on New Jerseyans, Scott Rumana was elected Passaic County's GOP chair. Despite the overwhelming burden the tax had on poor urban dwellers in Passaic and Paterson, Rumana did not take the lead in making moves to repeal the tax. Then as an Assemblyman from a district with a huge retail complex, Rumana has introduced no legislation to reduce the nation's highest sales tax. 

The sales tax is not Scott Rumana's fault, but it begs the question: How can the GOP win and govern when the party's leaders ignore winning issues for votes and people's bottom lines? 

Me-Tooism on Un- Affordable Housing

It's generally known that the state doesn't do great getting involved in the private sector. This is especially true when the state tries to get involved in housing and the construction and finance thereof. While New Jersey is an expensive place to live, the state subsidizing housing will only raise taxes, devalue more communities, and promote mediocrity.  As many statewide Democratic officials continue to see no problem with housing subsidization, the only check on an irresponsible and costly expansion of state affordable housing is the sizable Republican minority in both Houses of the Legislature.

(Currently, the GOP holds 40% of Assembly seats and 43% of Senate seats. That gives NJ more Republicans in office than the federal branch and many other states. Republicans also gained two Assembly seats in 2007.)

The problem is that Republicans take the stand of modifying the state's troubled "Affordable Housing Plan" rather than having the faith in the free market to end it! Case in point is Assemblyman Scott Rumana. Rumana represents a swath of  northeast New Jersey centered around the sprawling suburb of Wayne. In his district, the 40th, Republicans outnumber Democrats by nearly 10,000 voters and every Republican candidate in recent memory has won the district easily. Despite the robust Democratic parties in all three counties, the nation and state's majority party put up a mere third of the vote in the 40th in the 2007 Assembly elections.

Yet Rumana acts as though he represents a district including Newark and Jersey City. He has sponsored two bills in the Assembly creating new roles for the dreary Council on Affordable Housing. Rumana sponsored bill A3246, where the state would assist municipalities in buying foreclosed properties to meet the utterly absurd Council on Affordable Housing mandates. So its better to get the state into the unprofitable business of buying houses for those who cannot afford them to begin with???

Rumana, with the other liberal 40th District Assemblyman David Russo, sponsored A2888, which would give those in flood zones preference in Council on Affordable Housing obligations. Isn't it crazy when we are dictating who should be on line in the Housing Program rather than just getting rid of it?

Note neither of these bills have gotten anywhere in the Assembly. In fact, none of Rumana's bills have. 

The Council on Affordable Housing, and District 40's liberal, ineffectual Assembly members need to be retired before New Jersey moves into a new decade.