Friendly Fire Saturday: Which party is more fired up over the SCOTUS vacancy? – NJ.com

Can Americans still have a sensible and friendly political discussion across the partisan divide? The answer is yes, and we intend to prove it. Julie Roginsky, a Democrat, and Mike DuHaime, a Republican, are consultants who have worked on opposite teams for their entire careers yet have remained friends throughout. Here, they discuss the week’s events with Tom Moran, editorial page editor of The Star-Ledger.

Q. It is clear now that President Trump has the votes to appoint a third justice to the Supreme Court. Who is that going to fire up more come November, Democrats or Republicans?

Julie: It is going to fire up both. Evangelicals are going to be excited to vote for someone who will deliver the final blow to end a woman’s right to choose. Democrats will be fired up over fears that the Court will abridge rights for women, members of the LGBTQ community, minorities and unions. This assault on Roe v. Wade is going to fire up women, who are turning on Trump even in red states like Iowa, Texas and Georgia. Trump’s real motive in rushing this is to have a court that will prematurely end the vote count and declare him the winner, as the Court did in Bush v. Gore.

Mike: Conservatives have long been more motivated than liberals by judicial appointments, but that could be changing. I agree with Julie that the vacancy will energize both sides, on balance that should help Democrats. But the debate on the Court helps Trump by drawing attention away from COVID.

Q. A grand jury in Louisville found no basis to charge police officers in Breonna Taylor’s death, given that her boyfriend fired at police first after they burst in. “If we simply act on emotion or outrage, there is no justice,” said Daniel Cameron, Kentucky’s first Black attorney general. A correct and courageous decision? Or justice denied?

Julie: When a prosecutor wants to indict a ham sandwich, the ham sandwich is usually indicted. When a prosecutor doesn’t want to indict, you get results like this. But here are some sobering statistics to cut through the rhetoric: One out of every thousand Black men can expect to be killed by the police. Unarmed Black men, women and children are more than three times more likely than white people to be killed by police. Black teenagers are 21 times more likely. The mothers of my son’s Black friends are compelled to have conversations about police interactions that I, as a white mother, don’t need to have. That is tragic. If there is a legal reason why no one was indicted for killing a Black woman in her own home, then perhaps we should consider changing the law. Otherwise, the bodies of black men, women, and children will keep piling up.

Mike: Julie makes a great point about the law needing change. The no-knock warrant led to Breonna Taylor’s boyfriend firing his gun, thinking he was under attack. In turn, that caused the police to fire, and an innocent person is dead. And again, no one is held accountable for un unjust killing.

Q. Gov. Phil Murphy is about to sign a budget that increases spending and borrows $4.5 billion that will take a decade to pay off. Why is Senate President Steve Sweeney signing on, after spending two decades pushing for restraint?

Julie: I assume that Sweeney understands that the pandemic has drastically affected the state’s fiscal outlook for years to come, especially when federal help does not appear to be forthcoming.

Mike: That’s part of it. But also, Gov. Murphy has become more powerful during the pandemic. He’s more popular and is using executive power more. Sweeney and the legislature added needed funding to higher education and eliminated the silly baby bond idea, but on tax increases and massive spending with borrowed billions, they folded. That’s surprising.

Q. The budget includes $500 rebate checks that will go out during the heat of next year’s state elections. By design, the rebate excludes most of the working poor, and favors married couples over single parents. What sense does that make?

Julie: This budget includes a lot more than just this program and as a wholistic document provides significant aid to the working poor. It expands the earned income tax credit for the working poor, increases funding for charity care, fully funds the Homestead rebate, and expands preschool. It funds anti-hunger programs, it funds tuition assistance. I could go on.

Mike: I thought we were borrowing billions because we were in dire economic straits. It sounds like that was cover to expand spending programs and cut election year checks to some voters. The programs Julie mentions are laudable but there is also pork, like a renovation of a municipal building in Middlesex County and a golf course in Essex. It’s a joke that when every business and family is cutting costs, the state will increase spending, hike taxes, and borrow billions.

Q. An investigation by Pro Publica and the Asbury Park Press found that police officers in New Jersey rarely go to jail after being charged with crimes. That includes Sean Lavin, a police union leader, who was charged with pepper-spraying a woman in handcuffs and avoided jail through the Pretrial Intervention Program. How much power do police unions have in New Jersey politics? How does that affect reform efforts?

Julie: I am a big believer in PTI. Prison is for the most hardened criminals and most people who are in prison today don’t deserve to be there. But that doesn’t mean that police officers should not be held accountable in the same way civilians would be.

Mike: The vast majority of police are good public servants who put themselves in harm’s way to protect the rest of us, so I’m not looking to criminalize their every act in life and death situations. And that’s precisely the reason the union should not cover for those few who act inappropriately and give the rest a bad name.

Q. NJ Transit asked a judge to impose a gag order on Nancy Erika Smith, a fireball attorney who called the agency’s management “corrupt and dysfunctional.” Place your bets: I’ll give you 10-1 odds that Smith crushes them in court and embarrasses them in public.

Julie: Once again, this administration tries to muzzle a woman and creates more bad publicity for itself by doing it. Nancy Erika Smith was the attorney who represented Gretchen Carlson (and me) in sexual harassment lawsuits against Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes. She is one of the women responsible for kicking off the #MeToo movement. She is also one of the people responsible for New Jersey having the strongest non-disclosure agreement ban in the nation. And this is the woman they think they can try to intimidate and shut up? Every single time — and I mean, every single time — that this administration has tried to prevent whistleblowers from coming forward, it has led to awful PR for them and just more media attention on the very issues they want to sweep under the rug. At some point, they might want to stop punching themselves in the face — or at least hire someone who know more about PR than about bike lanes in Hoboken.

Mike: From a PR perspective, this was a mistake. The tweet from Ms. Smith that drove NJ Transit to action was viewed by almost no one. Now this case has garnered much more notice than it would have because Transit has acted to stifle her voice.

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