EDITORIAL: Our columnists say Monroe Mayor Richard Pucci’s campaign-finance reform pilot program is not the solution.
Monroe Mayor Richard Pucci became the poster boy last week for New Jersey’s broken system of campaign financing.
A series of stories in several Gannett New Jersey newspapers, The Star-Ledger and The Cranbury Press called into question the mayor’s connection to a political action committee that accepted money from a developer looking to build a minor league stadium in the township.
The connections, to put it bluntly, offered a textbook example of everything that is wrong with politics in the state of New Jersey.
Mayor Pucci, who serves as chairman of the township Democrats and has been serving as acting-chairman of the Middlesex County party, was operating a private political consulting firm that had one client the New Directions in Leadership PAC, which was founded by former state Senate President and Democratic powerbroker John Lynch. The PAC received contributions from developer Jack Morris, who is pushing the ballpark plan.
While there does not appear to be anything illegal about the relationships (there rarely is in New Jersey), this web of connections and influence does create an appearance of impropriety.
Recognizing this, the mayor announced that he was closing his consulting business and that he would recuse himself from any discussions or decisions involving Morris-proposed projects including the massive ballpark development slated to include both retail and residential uses on Route 33.
In addition, he announced the formation of what he is calling a pilot program that would look at ethics and campaign-finance reform in Monroe.
Essentially, the mayor wants to convene a seven-member panel that would examine the political system in Monroe with an eye toward broader pay-to-play reform. The idea, the mayor said, is to set the bar higher.
That shouldn’t be too difficult. Monroe’s pay-to-play rules are relatively weak they prohibit companies doing business with the township, bidding on township contracts or making a development application before either the planning or zoning board from contributing more than $400 to a municipal office holder, candidate for office or candidate’s committee. But they do nothing to prohibit money from being funneled through party committees and other political action committees.
This loophole allowed the township Democrats to amass a $324,006 war chest during the 2004 and 2005 calendar years an absurd amount in a town in which the Republican Party is on life-support.
Plugging this loophole wouldn’t be difficult, and it certainly doesn’t require the creation of another blue-ribbon committee. The Township Council could plug this hole all by itself, by drafting and adopting a new ordinance.
The reality, however, is that a much larger fix is needed, a fix that only the state Legislature can put in place. It must include public financing of state, county and local elections, tighter controls on lobbyists and a ban on public officials operating private political consulting firms.
In the face of this imposing reality and given that the council has the power to make some basic fixes on its own the mayor’s pilot program appears to be nothing more than an attempt to deflect attention away from his troubles.