Hugh Jass

Gov Sherrill found $20M for illegal immigrant defense programs, but cut funding for nonprofits serving seniors, people with disabilities, ALS patients, rehabilitation services, & vulnerable families. Budgets reveal priorities & this one speaks for itself.

💸 THE DIRTY DOZEN IN NJ’S $60.7B BUDGET DAY 10: BUFFET JUSTICE THEY PICK. YOU PAY. NJ is using your tax dollars in court as a policy lab for progressive activism. In @GovSherrillNJ's swollen $60.7B Budget-in-Brief, $877M in taxpayer $ flows through the Department of Law and Public Safety plus $9.3M in the Legal Services Fund (all lumped together with law enforcement as a whole) and we can't see how much is actually going to bona fide law enforcement & valid legal services vs. dead-end litigation. Dem legislators blindly advance laws already flagged as unconstitutional by the nonpartisan Office of Legislative Services, so naturally the Governor & AG jump right onto the train wreck. The goal isn’t to get it right, it’s to get a headline, passing laws they know won’t survive just to fight it out in court on your dime. Look at what that produces. Former NJ AG Matt Platkin (and his ego) rolled out a racketeering case against a South Jersey power broker like it was the takedown of the century: press conferences, headlines, fists shaking, teeth gnashing... until it collapsed because the indictment was legally deficient, past the statute of limitations & the court ruled the activity not even a crime. The political hatchet job that went nowhere. Then they dragged energy companies like ExxonMobil into court on a global climate theory that never belonged in a state courtroom to begin with & it got thrown out with prejudice. Completely dead. Your tax dollars wasted on a case that was legally doomed from the start. Then they passed an unconstitutional law to ban immigration detention facilities tied to federal enforcement, and got smacked down in CoreCivic, Inc. v. Murphy... because states don't get to override federal immigration authority. Who knew??? Then came the gun grab. After losing the Supreme Court Bruen decision, Platkin and Co. tried to choke off the right to carry AGAIN, including forcing people to carry liability insurance just to exercise a constitutional right. The courts struck that piece down, with much more to come. Then we have OPRA records that prove the Attorney General’s office colluded with Planned Parenthood to cut the legs out from under pregnancy resource centers (PP's biggest competitor). Now it’s at the U.S. Supreme Court in First Choice Women’s Resource Centers v. Platkin (without a single consumer complaint!) and justices are grilling the AG’s office as to why. Again, using the courts as a bully pulpit, with your money. There's no total litigation dollar figure, so there's no way for the public to see what any of this actually costs you. It's buried on purpose, using your money to litigate away your constitutional rights. The Governor & the AG’s office should be forced to show what each of these wild goose chase lawsuits costs taxpayers. They won’t, because it’s easier to spend your money in the back room while angling for headlines and dreaming of higher office. This is buffet justice. They pick what they want, leave the rest, and send YOU the bill.