Tag: New Jersey

NJ Gov. Vetoes ObamaCare Exchange; SD Gov. Rejects Medicaid Expansion

By
Michael F. Cannon

On the same day he met with President Barack Obama (D) at the White House, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) vetoed a bill that would have implemented a key part of ObamaCare:

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) became the latest state chief executive to rebuff President Barack Obama’s health care reform law Thursday by vetoing a bill that would have created an online marketplace for uninsured residents to shop for health insurance.

For the second time this year, Christie rejected legislation passed by New Jersey’s Democratic-controlled legislature that would have established a state-run health insurance exchange under Obamacare.

Meanwhile, South Dakota Gov. Dennis Daugaard (R) said his state will not implement ObamaCare’s Medicaid expansion:

There are far too many unanswered questions for me to recommend adding 48,000 adults to the 116,000 already on our rolls.

The Huffington Post reports that 19 states have refused to establish an Exchange, and 9 states have refused to expand Medicaid. I’ve heard higher counts, though.

Topics: 
General, Government and Politics, Health Care

March Madness: Eminent Domain Abuse Goes Coast-to-Coast

By
Ilya Shapiro

This is a big week for private property rights.  Two epic eminent domain struggles are playing out on opposite sides of the country. 

First, National City, California, is ground zero for eminent domain abuse.  City officials declared several hundred properties blighted even before conducting a blight study that was riddled with problems. The city wants to seize and bulldoze a youth community center (CYAC) that has transformed the lives of hundreds of low-income kids, so a wealthy developer can build high-rise luxury condos:


CYAC has numerous volunteers, including local law enforcement officers, providing free mentoring in boxing as well as academics.  The gym is famous for getting kids off the street and back into school.  As Rick Reilly explained in a feature in Sports Illustrated (boy, how I miss his inside-back-page column):

You know what, Mayor? National City doesn’t need more luxury condos. It needs good men like the Barragans teaching kids respect for neighbors and property, manners you could use a little of yourself.

And if you kick the Barragans out so some slick in Armani can buy a bigger yacht, I hope your car stereo gets jacked—weekly—by a kid who would’ve otherwise been lovingly coached on their jabs and their math and their lives.

Question: Can you declare politicians blighted?

This week, the gym’s battle is in trial before the Superior Court of California.  Represented by the Institute for Justice (who else?), a victory will help protect private property far beyond National City and clarify the use and misuse of blight designations.

Second, moving to the other side of the country, we go to Mount Holly, New Jersey:


Mount Holly is another classic case of “Robin Hood-in-Reverse.”  Officials have been dismantling a close-knit community known as the Gardens for the last decade so a Philadelphia developer can bulldoze the area and build more expensive residential properties.

Homeowners in the Gardens are primarily minorities and the elderly.  The row-style houses are being torn down while still attached to occupied homes, and officials refuse to offer the remaining homeowners replacement housing in the new redevelopment.  Further, owners are being offered less than half the amount it would cost to buy a similar home blocks away.

Here, IJ just launched a billboard campaign and did a study that concludes the eminent domain abuse project may result in a loss of a million taxpayer dollars a year, or one-tenth of the Township’s budget.

I previously wrote about eminent domain shenanigans here and you can read more from Cato on property rights here.

Topics: 
Government and Politics, Law and Civil Liberties, Regulatory Studies

What if We Ran a Public School System… and No-One Came?

By
Andrew J. Coulson

The New Jersey Office of Legislative Services, which estimates the budgetary impact of proposed laws, has just released its analysis of a private school choice bill called the “Opportunity Scholarship Act.” The most remarkable thing about its report is the amount of money it assumes that districts would save for each student they no longer have to teach: $0.

On that assumption, if every student were to leave for the private sector tomorrow, districts would keep right on spending exactly the same amount they spend today. Inefficient though it is, not even state-run monopoly schooling is that bad.

The OLS report does not explain why it assumes that the per pupil savings for students leaving public schools (the “marginal cost”) would be $0. It states that this figure is “indeterminate,” but by not counting it at all is effectively treating it as zero.

In fact, the marginal cost of public schooling is not “indeterminate” at all. Economists “determine” it all the time, and it’s quite easy to do. You simply observe how district spending actually rises and falls with enrollment, using a time-series regression, as I did in 2009 to calculate the marginal cost of public schooling in Nevada (see Appendix A).

Even if the NJ OLS does not conduct a marginal cost estimate specific to New Jersey, they could have done–and should still do–the next best thing: take the marginal cost estimates for other states as a rough guide and estimate the NJ district savings from them. I estimated that Nevada district spending falls by 85% of average per-pupil spending when a student leaves, and Grecu and Lindsay, a couple of years earlier, estimated the figure at 80% for South Carolina.

If they want to be conservative, the NJ OLS could use the lower of these figures, and perhaps also run the numbers for estimates 10% higher and 10% lower.

Any of the above options is preferable to the logical impossibility of their current analysis, which effectively treats the marginal cost of public schooling as $0.

Topics: 
Education and Child Policy, Regulatory Studies, Tax and Budget Policy

Libertarianism Happens to People

By
David Rittgers

You are probably familiar with the story of Brian Aitken, the responsible gun owner wrongly convicted of violating New Jersey’s draconian gun laws. Governor Chris Christie commuted Aitken’s sentence, and his appeal is still pending.

As Radley Balko often says, libertarianism happens to people. It happened to Brian Aitken:

Aitken never thought of himself as a libertarian, but two years in the clutches of the state system has changed him completely. Before the arrest, the young, apolitical entrepreneur was on his way to a successful career in digital marketing.

“I never considered myself a person who is really interested in politics,” Aitken says. “But after all this happened I am definitely a hardcore libertarian now.”

Read the whole thing.

Topics: 
Law and Civil Liberties, Political Philosophy

Brian Aitken’s Sentence Commuted

By
David Rittgers

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has commuted the seven-year sentence of Brian Aitken, the man wrongfully convicted on firearms charges under that state’s draconian gun laws. Good.

While a full pardon seems more appropriate – the judge in this case should have given the jury instructions on the “moving exception” that protected Aitken – this is at least recognition of an injustice and relief for one man and his family.

The New Jersey state judicial system’s webpage describes the grand jury’s function as “a screening mechanism to protect citizens from unfounded charges.” That didn’t happen in this case. For more on this phenomenon, read this Cato Policy Analysis, “A Grand Façade: How the Grand Jury Was Captured by the Government.”

For more Cato work on criminal justice, check out Tim Lynch’s excellent book, In the Name of Justice.

Topics: 
Law and Civil Liberties

Brian Aitken Pardon Decision Pending

By
David Rittgers

In a recent post I discussed the plight of Brian Aitken, a New Jersey resident currently serving seven years in prison. Thing is, it’s not clear that Aitken broke the law.

Radley Balko produced an excellent write-up of Aitken’s case, and Glenn Reynolds put together a video. Aitken’s conviction is the product of (1) New Jersey’s draconian gun laws; (2) a lack of prosecutorial discretion that should have focused resources on real threats to society; and (3) a judge’s refusal to issue jury instructions on the “moving exception” to New Jersey’s gun laws. The same judge dismissed animal cruelty charges against a police officer that had placed his penis in the mouths of five calves. The judge was serving in a temporary capacity and not reappointed by Governor Christie. This is overcriminalization compounded by incompetence.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has said that he intends to make a decision on Aitken’s conviction by Christmas. If you’ve got the time, here is a link to information on joining Aitken’s Facebook campaign for a pardon and a phone number to call the Governor Christie’s office and express your support.

Topics: 
Law and Civil Liberties

Overcriminalization Incentives

By
David Rittgers

In my post on Brian Aitken’s plight, I discussed New Jersey’s draconian gun laws and how a law-abiding citizen can become a victim of overbroad laws. New Jersey gun laws weren’t always so bad, but overcriminalization warped them into their current unconstitutional state.

This trend is a staple of modern legislative activity. Every time a politician says that we must pass a new law to “get tough on crime” and that their pet legislation ought to be passed “for the children,” it’s a sure indicator that the rule of law is about to take another body blow. Take, for instance, the crusade against sexting that threatens to make foolish teenagers into sex offenders. Or the proposed federal cyberbullying act, which aims to turn teens into federal felons, in spite of the fact that there is no federal juvenile justice system. New Jersey gun laws jumped the shark a long time ago and haven’t looked back.

The same is true with federal “honest services” fraud. In the words of one former lawmaker who fed the overcriminalization beast only to see it turn on him:

When I served in Congress, I vigorously opposed any expansion of federal agency authority. All too often, however, I exempted the Justice Department from my efforts because I wanted to give law enforcement the power it needed to keep our country safe from dangerous individuals. After enduring a years-long investigation into crimes my wife and I did not commit, and after watching the outrageous prosecution of Kevin Ring, I have serious doubts about whether I was wise to faithfully support the Justice Department. I strongly encourage the new Congress to examine the guidance and leeway the Department gives to federal prosecutors, and to refrain from passing any new vague criminal laws which seem to invite the worst prosecutorial abuse.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. For more on overcriminalization, take a look at Tim Lynch’s book, In the Name of Justice, or Harvey Silverglate’s Three Felonies a Day.

Topics: 
Law and Civil Liberties

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