When a bunch of politically charged decisions are or must be made all around the same time, it allows the political nerd inside me to come out and play analyst. Today is one of those days. As I was sitting in my bankruptcy law class my phone went a bit crazy with news that Governor Christie had submitted two new nominations to the New Jersey Supreme Court to fill the expiring terms of Justices Wallace and Long, both turning 70 this year.
Now I am sure that the reason these men, Mayor Bruce Harris and Phil Kwon, are incredibly qualified for the positions on the court that they will soon hold. It would be hard to argue that they are not based on just a quick glance at their resumes.
Mr. Harris has degrees from Yale Law School, an MBA from the Boston University School of Management he is a graduate of Amherst College. His work experience includes AT&T, Riker, Danzig and Greenberg Traurig. Mr. Harris has been an active member of his community as a member of the Chatham Borough Governing Body, the Chatham Environmental Commission, the Chatham Historic Preservation Commission, as a Trustee of the UMDNJ Foundation and New Jersey Health Foundation, and The Eric Johnson House.
Mr. Kwan received his undergraduate degree in from Georgetown University and his law degree in from Rutgers University School of Law in Newark. He currently serves as First Assistant Attorney General of New Jersey. He was previously an assistant United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey where he was Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division, the Chief of the Violent Crimes Unit. Among the many cases Mr. Kwan tried, he prosecuted some of the most violent gangs in our state, the Bloods, the Crips, and the Latin Kings.
However, that does not make for a fun discussion, so lets delve in a bit further.
Most of the headlines on this bit of news is that Harris will be the first openly gay member of the New Jersey Supreme Court. He is also African American, which takes care of one of the complaints coming from the Democrats when Justice Wallace was not given tenure. Let me just say that personally, none of this makes a difference to me. The small amount of negative, bigoted comments I have seen made from some so-called conservatives regarding Harris’s sexual orientation have been disappointing. I do find some solace in the fact that these comments do seem to be few in number. I can fully understand why this selection is a big deal to the gay community, and I am happy for them that they can take this as a victory and support Governor Christie in his selection. My main concern, however, is his application of the New Jersey Constitution. That being said, it would be remiss of me to ignore the fact that an openly-gay-African-American-Republican-mayor may be the rarest thing of which I have ever heard in politics; quite a find indeed. Harris is in his early 60s, and thus will not be serving on the court for too long, even if he is afforded tenure after his first seven years. This was the one key fact that jumped out at me. Knowing that (and not much else about Harris), I am willing to bet that Harris will have a strong conservative voting record in the time he spends there. The GOP and the Administration has been seeking young blood for this court to institute the long term changes necessary to restore the balance that is supposed to exist in our state government. To nominate someone in their 60s sends a signal to me that Harris will help lead the rightward charge on the court in the short amount of time he will be there.
Phil Kwon, a former employee under Christie in the US Attorney’s office, is in his mid 40s. Assuming he is given tenure, he will be on the court for a solid 25 years before facing mandatory retirement. Having worked under Christie for a few years, the Governor is no doubt personally aware of Kwon’s leanings, background, and qualifications. Kwon is also the first Asian American to ever serve on the court.
What makes these nominations so great for the inside-baseball spectator is that it seems almost impossible that the Senate Democrats would hold these appointments up. If they did, they would risk alienating what they consider to be key constituencies. If one of the reasons Steve Sweeney thought that Justice Wallace should have been renominated was merely that he was African American, then in what universe could Sweeney possibly hold back Mayor Harris? The same goes for Kwon. Would the Senate President really deny the Asian community its first “representative” on the Supreme Court just to fight with the Governor? There is almost no way that the Democrats could politically posture this properly.
I will even go a step further. We now have five major battles coming up in Trenton:
- The Budget
- Income Tax Reform
- Education Reform
- Gay Marriage
- Minimum Wage (i.e. Business Expense) Hike
I have said before that I believe that the Democrats, who are making gay marriage a “top priority” when unemployment remains unreasonably high, will use the marriage issue as a bargaining chip in the other three battles where the Governor wants win.
Governor Christie has publicly stated that he is for civil unions and does not favor gay marriage. However in recent days he seems to be a bit more elusive with his answers on the subject, leaving many social conservatives feeling uneasy on the issue as the Assembly approaches a veto-proof majority for the bill. The Democrats were likely hoping for one of two things to happen.
- The Governor caves to the fact that they could have veto proof majorities in both houses and realizes that he does not want to be the odd man out on the issue, and just signs it.
- The Governor vetoes it, the legislature does not override it, but then they have a boogeyman in Governor Christie to get gay marriage advocates rallied for the 2013 election cycle, where they would paint Christie as a homophobic bigot.
Well what happened to number 2 now? I think it is rather hard to argue that Christie is a bigot now, making historic appointments to the Supreme Court that reaches both racial minorities and the gay community. Would a homophobic Governor place an openly gay man on the highest court in the state? I do not think so, and neither would voters. Now Christie has effectively given himself options. He has taken some of the Democrat’s biggest threats and PR plans off the table for next year. He may still end up signing the bill, even further removing the argument, but now he has leverage to think and make his decision without as much pressure from Sweeney.
Either way, Save Jersey congratulates Mayor Harris and Mr. Kwon on their nominations and hopes that the Senate Democrats show them far more respect than they did to Justice Patterson in her drawn out appointment process.
I think Christie made those nominations for that exact purpose. He knows the democrats won't yield to them, so he paints them as the bigots and himself as a friend of those communities, whose help he shall need in 2013 (if he even gets there as there is a recall petition in the works). He's been doing the whole scapegoat thing with the Port Authority as well and it is becoming to be an ugly, ugly sight, these dirty politics maneuvers.