Interpreting the School Budget Vote

Yesterday, New Jersey voters did something they haven’t done in more than 30 years: defeated a majority of school district tax levies. [Note: I’m calling them “levies” here because that is more accurate. Voters don’t really have a say on the spending portion of the operational budgets of their local schools. They only get to vote on the amount in property taxes that the district proposes levying for the year.]

They also turned out in record numbers. The final statewide vote count hasn’t been compiled, but it is somewhere north of 20% of all registered voters. [Update: Turnout was more than 1.2 million voters. That's 24% as a percentage of all registered voters (26% if you exclude districts that don't put the levy up for a vote)! It was 13.5% in 2009.] That may not sound like much, but the previous high for school elections, going back to at least 1976, was 18.6%. 1976 was also the last time a majority of school levies failed. That year, 56% went down. This year, it looks like 59% have been tossed out by voters.

A Monmouth University/Gannett New Jersey Poll released last week found that 29% of registered voters – if they did vote – would support their local school levies, while 37% would oppose them. Based on a sampling of county returns, it looks like that 8 point margin may hold up in the final statewide vote. [Update: The gap closed to 48% for to 52% against -- a 4 point margin.]

There are some other interesting findings as well. Taking Middlesex County as just one example, compared to the April 2009 election, turnout in this one county was up by 65%. The number of “No” votes went up by 90%. But the number of “Yes” votes also went up, albeit by a lower 40%. In other words, turnout increased on both sides of the issue.

So what does this all mean?

Chris Christie and his supporters have claimed victory, saying that New Jersey voters sided with the governor in his battle with the state teacher’s union, the NJEA. However, the governor urged voters to defeat budgets in districts where the teachers made no concessions – and a good number of these actually passed. On the flip side, in the few districts where teachers actually agreed to wage freezes or other concessions – the districts one would expect to be rewarded if voters were out to show support for the governor – a good number (anywhere between 6 and 13 depending on what you count as a "concession") of the school budget levies failed.

The NJEA claims that the school vote was a repudiation of the governor’s draconian cuts in school aid which forced school boards to raise property taxes in order to maintain needed programs and services. Maybe, but polls also indicate that the public expected teachers to be willing to take pay freezes and pay for their benefits.

Local school boards say the vote was the product of a rush to make drastic cuts in a short time frame with few available tools to lessen the pain for both the educational system and the taxpayers. They may be partially right, but polls consistently show that voters believe there is a whole lot of waste in school spending to begin with.

So, here’s what we know about the New Jersey public:
1. They think the size of the cuts in state aid to local schools is unfair.
2. They think the teachers’ unions should be willing to come to the table and agree to a wage freeze and benefit contributions.
3. They don’t want educational programs cut.
4. They don’t want their property taxes raised.

All of these are reasons why Garden State voters voted yesterday. They are the reasons why more people than usual turned out to vote “No.” And they are also the reasons why more people than usual turned out to vote “Yes.”

Anyone who claims with certainty that any of these reasons is the main factor behind a majority of school levies going down yesterday is just blowing smoke.

However, one clarion message did emerge from yesterday’s vote. And the governor got it right when he said today, "[New Jerseyans have] had enough. They want real, fundamental change."

New Jersey voters get very few chances to actually make a statement at the ballot box (considering all our “safe” legislative districts). We’ve seen in the past year, though, that when given a real opportunity to vote for change, they’ll take it. April 20, 2010 was one of those times.

I don’t think yesterday’s vote can be seen as a whole-hearted endorsement of Governor Christie’s policy choices. But it seems clear that he has single-handedly raised the public’s awareness and interest in what’s going on in the state. And for that accomplishment alone, he deserves kudos.

In so doing, though, he has also raised expectations. The message from yesterday’s vote is that it’s time for everyone – governor, legislative leadership, unions, etc. – to drop the childish name-calling, come to the table, and get to work putting New Jersey back on the right track.

Conflicting Polls on the Teachers' Union? Not Really.

A trio of polls were released last week on Governor Chris Christie’s budget, particularly focusing on school aid cuts and state unions. According to at least one report, these polls were “seemingly at odds” with one another (also here). But if you look at what the three polls actually asked, they really tell separate pieces of a cohesive – but nuanced – story.

The Eagleton Poll (and here) found 57% of New Jerseyans feel that school aid should not be cut and 72% are opposed to “making it easier” to lay off teachers to solve local budget problems.

The Monmouth University/Gannett New Jersey Poll found 68% of the public see the cuts as being unfair to some groups (with teachers being among the top “victims”) and Governor Christie is seen as the more negative party in the NJEA dust-up, and ultimately more responsible for the impending teacher layoffs.

The Rasmussen Poll found 65% of likely voters favor having school employees (including teachers, administrators and other workers) take a one year wage freeze to help make up for the deficit in state funding.

I really don’t find anything too contradictory in those results. Public opinion is rarely black and white (as national polling about the health reform debate dramatically illustrates). The real difference in these three polls is that each chose to cover a different facet of the issue.

Both the Eagleton and Monmouth polls asked residents about their opinion of the governor’s proposed budget and how it will affect them personally.

Eagleton also asked quite a few questions about what areas of the budget should or should not be cut and what, if any, tax increases the public is willing to accept in order to avoid those cuts (none, apparently).

Monmouth’s survey included questions on impressions of Christie’s budget in comparison to Jon Corzine’s first budget (trends are a wonderful tool for providing context) and a focus on communication with the general public, including the NJEA battle and reaction to key terms used to describe the budget (e.g. “tough” and “fair”).

Rasmussen’s poll asked four questions, mainly focused on state worker concessions to deal with the budget crisis.

In terms of election polling, Rasmussen has a very good track record and, by my reckoning, had the most accurate final pre-election poll in last year’s gubernatorial race. [And admittedly, Monmouth, along with Zogby, YouGov, and Democracy Corp, came up with the wrong end of the stick in the final days of that campaign. Eagleton did not issue a final election poll.]

But election polling and policy polling are as different as meteorology and climatology. Both start off from the same theoretical premise, but election polling rises and falls on a pollster’s ability to selectively sample and predict the behavior of a subset of the total population. The heart of good policy polling is question wording. [That's why it’s really important to read the actual poll questions on controversial policy issues before reporting the results.]

Differences in question wording can be just a matter of perspective. Simply put, each pollster comes to the field from a different background, e.g. political scientist, policy or communication researcher, partisan strategist, and so on. These hats inform both the topics they choose to cover and how they word the questions.

The pollster’s agenda also informs what segments of the population are considered worth including in the measurement of public opinion on a policy issue. Do they survey the entire general public affected by the issue or just likely voters who can inflict electoral consequences? [Update: Coincidentally, pollster.com's Mark Blumenthal addresses this very issue in his National Journal column today!]

Regardless of the pollsters' varying agendas, these three polls taken together tell a much more complete story than any of the polls separately. You just have to do a little work to put the pieces together.

The notion that the public wants their taxes lowered but recoil from cutting valued services and programs is a phenomenon we’ve seen for years.

So why is it any more difficult to fathom that the public believes the state payroll is a drain on resources and wants the unions to make concessions, but at the same time feels that the governor’s “in your face” approach may not be the best way to go about it?

Another seeming contrast is the recent Public Mind poll that found New Jerseyans evenly divided – 35% favorable to 35% unfavorable – in their opinion of the NJEA and Rasmussen’s result that 66% of the public think the union is more interested in “protecting their members’ jobs” than in “the quality of education.”

Hmm, a union is seen as being more interested in helping their members than in helping their members’ employers. Unusual?

[Side note: Considering how many teachers will be laid off because the unions are unwilling to negotiate concessions, one has to wonder what these poll respondents were actually thinking when they said the union is protecting jobs. My guess is that the question simply taps the employee/employer dichotomy. ABC News pollster Gary Langer has a must-read post about the perils of taking question wording too literally.]

The bottom line is that there is nothing contradictory in these polls. Nothing in the Monmouth/Gannett poll contradicts Rasmussen's finding that most people see the state payroll as a burden on the budget and unionized workers should be willing to take a wage freeze. [In fact, much of our past polling supports that view.] By the same token, Rasmussen's poll does not contradict our finding that the public feels the school aid cut is unfair and the governor is more responsible for the negative tone of the debate.

As someone who has worked closely with media partners on providing public opinion data, I know that nuance in poll numbers – or indeed in any data driven reporting – is not the easiest thing to get across.

Here’s a friendly suggestion for my good friends in the fourth estate. If you are faced with seemingly conflicting polls – especially when a particular set of numbers is brought to your attention by a politician’s press secretary (!) – perhaps it would be worthwhile to contact an independent polling expert to provide context to what the different polls are saying.

Round 1 Goes to the NJEA

The latest Monmouth University/Gannett New Jersey Poll contains some mixed news for Governor Christie’s budget. The public may see it as tough, but not necessarily fair. Two-thirds of New Jerseyans say that the proposed cuts will disproportionately hurt some New Jerseyans, mainly the middle class, the poor, and … teachers.

When Governor Christie unveiled his budget, he made a specific effort to single out the NJEA as one of the primary opponents to fiscal reform. He basically dared them to oppose his cuts. The governor needed to identify an enemy in his fight to cut costs, and the NJEA was it.

The New Jersey Education Association is the state’s largest teachers’ union, with more than 200,000 members. The governor rightly assumed that the NJEA’s leadership would retrench, opposing any and all changes to their current contract provisions and benefits. However, Christie wrongly assumed that he could isolate the intransigent union leadership from their membership and win over public support.

Our latest poll finds that many state residents side with the union in this fight. Overall, more New Jerseyans blame the governor rather than the local unions or school boards for the inevitable teacher layoffs next year. This is despite the fact that only a handful of local unions agreed even to consider wage freezes as an alternative to job cuts.

The governor was warned this could happen. Here’s why.

More than one-in-five New Jersey households include either a teacher or another state worker (who have also been on the receiving end of the governor’s wrath). Another 1-in-4 Garden State households do not have public employees, but they do include kids who are taught by these teachers. That means nearly half of the New Jersey public is probably predisposed to sympathize with the teachers in this fight.

The poll results bear this out. When asked who is to blame for the impending workforce cuts at local schools, 57% of those in teacher or state worker households and 45% of parents blame Christie more than any other party in the process. Only among the other half of the New Jersey public – i.e. those who don’t have a teacher, state worker, or child in their home – does the governor (36%) share the blame with the teachers’ unions (33%).

The problem may be that the governor came out swinging just a little too hard when he decided to make an example of the NJEA. Back in January, columnist Charles Stiles described Christie as “licking his chops” at the prospect of taking on the teachers’ union. This may have made some New Jerseyans uncomfortable.

Teachers educate our children, for crying out loud. Sure, there are some long in the tooth, tenured ones who are just phoning it in. But most teachers are caring, concerned individuals who happen to have their own families to feed. Right?

I’m not saying that Christie should have avoided taking on the NJEA at all. Most objective observers would agree that the union has been less than cooperative with local school boards trying to keep job losses to a minimum. But the battle needs to be engaged more shrewdly.

The public’s predisposition to sympathize with teachers was always going to be the NJEA’s secret weapon. The union leadership knew how to play up that asset, using everything from TV and radio commercials to messages – some subliminal, some explicit – conveyed in the classroom.

The war is certainly not over, but the NJEA seems to have won the first battle in the court of public opinion.

As his term progresses, Chris Christie would do well to remember the words of Oscar Wilde: “A man can’t be too careful in the choice of his enemies.”

Public Support for Oil Drilling in the Mid-Atlantic

President Obama surprised more than a few people with his announcement yesterday to allow oil drilling in coastal waters. The northwestern boundary of the Atlantic Ocean exploration area is reportedly within 10 miles of Cape May, New Jersey. So it’s not surprising that Garden State political leaders have an opinion on this. What may be more surprising is that their opinion is nearly universally opposed – both Democrats and Republicans alike, including Governor Christie.

But how does the public feel about it? Especially among those who actually live along the coast? A study recently conducted by the Polling Institute and the Urban Coast Institute at Monmouth University provides some answers.

But, let’s take a look at the national picture first. A Pew Research Center poll in April 2009 found that 68% of Americans favor allowing more offshore drilling in U.S. waters, with just 27% opposed. This is similar to the 65% support registered by a Public Agenda poll that same month and up slightly from the 62% a national Quinnipiac poll found in August 2008. [Note: each poll used slightly different wording, but the findings are very similar.]

There are also a few state polls worth looking at. The Public Policy Institute of California has been polling on this issue for a number of years. When Californians were asked in February 2006 about allowing more drilling off their own state’s coast, only 31% were in support, compared to 64% who were opposed. That opinion shifted a little by July that same year, when support rose to 42% and opposition dropped to a bare majority of 51%. This was more in line with prior polls, where opposition was tabbed at 53% (2005), 50% (2004), and 54% (2003). PPIC’s next poll reading in July 2007 found that opinions remained stable at 41% for to 52% against.

But just one year later, that number flipped. PPIC’s July 2008 poll registered 51% majority support for drilling off the California coast, compared to 43% who opposed it. After at least five years of steady majority opposition, most Californians were in favor of drilling for oil off their own coast!

Recent polling in other coastal states reveals that most residents are in favor of drilling off their own shores. For example, a March 2009 Elon University poll of North Carolina residents found the 66% supported drilling off the Tar Heel State’s coast, compared to just 29% opposed.

In New Jersey, a Monmouth University/Gannett Poll from August 2008 found that 56% of Garden State residents supported drilling off their own coast, with 36% opposed. As a point of comparison, this result was not markedly different from the 59% of New Jerseyans who favored drilling off of Virginia’s coast and 51% who favored drilling in the Alaska wildlife refuge.

Basically, there seems to have been a shift in public opinion in favor of offshore drilling driven by the fuel price “bubble” two years ago. Moreover, there doesn’t seem to be any NIMBY effect at the state level. But is that still the case when you examine the views of those who live right on the coastline?

In 2007, Monmouth University conducted a unique survey of Mid-Atlantic coastal residents – i.e. people living in census tracts along the Atlantic Ocean from New York to Virginia. More than 8-in-10 of the study sample lived within one mile of the beach and more than 6-in-10 lived within a few blocks of the Atlantic’s waters. We repeated the study in April 2009, including a question about offshore drilling (see pages 19-20 of the report).

In the 2007 survey, we found that 33% of residents living in Mid-Atlantic coastal communities supported “drilling for oil or gas in the ocean off the Atlantic coast,” while 40% opposed it. Another 27% registered no opinion (which was an explicit choice in the survey question). By 2009, some of that “no opinion” had shifted to support – specifically, 46% of these coastal residents favored offshore drilling two years later, compared to 37% who were opposed and 16% with no opinion.

[It’s also worth noting that support for placing energy producing windmills off these residents’ coastlines also increased by about 10 points between 2007 and 2009 –57% support if the turbines are visible from the shore and 82% support if the wind farms are placed beyond the horizon.]

There are some interesting state-level differences in support for offshore drilling in the more recent poll. New York coastal residents (i.e. people who live along the south shore of Long Island) were the least supportive of offshore drilling – only 37% supported it compared to 44% opposed. Maryland residents (which were basically from the resort town of Ocean City) were most in favor, by a 65% to 22% margin. A majority of coastal residents in both Delaware (52% to 33%) and New Jersey (51% to 36%) also favored offshore drilling, while opinion was more divided in Virginia (42% to 34%).*

So, on the question of offshore drilling, it appears that the opinions of New Jersey’s political leaders are not entirely in line with the opinions of most Garden State residents, including those who live in the state’s coastal communities.

[*Note: Due to different sample sizes, the margin of sampling error for results from New York and New Jersey is +/-5.5%, for Virginia is +/-6.5%, and for Delaware and Maryland is +/-9.5%.]

Little Love for the “Representative from My District”

It’s a truism that Americans rate their own Congressional representatives more positively than the institution as a whole. An NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll released last week bears that out.

Congress as a whole received an abysmal 17% job approval rating in the poll. Other polls released over the past few weeks showed between 14% and 26% of Americans approving of the Capitol Hill’s performance, with fully 70% to 80% registering disapproval.

Those numbers are low, but not entirely unprecedented. In the run-up to the 2008 election, Congressional approval ratings in the teens and low twenties were fairly common. And Congressional approval is rarely all that high any way. From the 1980s through the mid-1990s, positive opinion of the legislative branch hovered in the upper thirties to low forties. By the late 1990s, those numbers frequently topped the 50% mark, but went on a quick decline in the mid-2000s.

Unlike the other recent polls, though, the NBC/WSJ poll also asked respondents to “rate the congressman or woman from [their] district?” Those results were 45% approve to 41% disapprove. While that is certainly better than the 17% to 77% rating for Congress as a whole, the results still seemed low.

So I did a quick search. The “my member of Congress” question is not asked as frequently as the institutional job performance question, but the trend line indicates that the NBC/WSJ result is among the lowest recorded in national polls, since at least the mid-1970s (see chart below).

For most of the past 30 years, generic approval of the job done by “the representative from my district” lingered in the low 60s. We’ve seen that generally decline over the past five years – with one positive spike in 2007. The trend also indicates there was a great deal of volatility between 1991 and 1994, although “my member” approval rarely dipped below 50%.

Moreover, I found only two instances where the approve/disapprove gap was nearly as small as the 4 point margin in the recent NBC/WSJ poll: a Times-Mirror Poll from March 1992 (45% approve to 37% disapprove) and an ABC/Washington Post Poll from October 1994 (49% approve to 43% disapprove).

Both of these prior polls are instructive. The 1992 result was registered a few months before the election that saw Bill Clinton defeat incumbent George H.W. Bush during an economic downturn. Clinton’s victory was unusual because – unlike his modern predecessors – he had no coattails. His party actually lost a handful of seats in the House of Representatives that year.

And then we all know what happened in the next election cycle. The 1994 midterm saw the Republicans pick up a whopping 54 seats to gain control of the House.

So will 2010 be like 1994?

There are some who look at the party ratings – Republican approval ratings are worse than the Democrats – as evidence that this year won’t be like 1994. However, the Republicans were also polling lower than the Democrats in 1994. An ABC/Washington Post poll right before that election gave Congressional Democrats a net negative 14 point rating and their GOP counterparts an even worse net negative 26 point rating.

At the end of the day, voters elect individual members of Congress, not the party. A number of incumbents are consistently successful in overcoming their party’s negative ratings. But trouble is definitely brewing when the “my member” job approval number drops below 50%.

The question now is whether passage of the health care reform bill will change the outlook for this November. That depends on whether independent voters see the bill as good or bad for themselves. Up until now, their opinion has been mainly negative. But passage of landmark legislation can have a strange effect on voters.

Independents say they want bipartisan action, but at the end of the day, they’ll take any action over inaction. On Sunday, the Democrats seemed to demonstrate that they can actually get something major accomplished, and some voters may give them credit for that. Polls coming out in the next few days and week will tell us whether that is the case.

But the prospect that this deal could help Democrats is why the Senate reconciliation process will be a political football. It’s not so much that voters are concerned about the individual “fixes” in that legislation. The Republicans realize that undermining the Senate Democrats’ bargain with their House colleagues could douse any burgeoning positive opinion for the majority party generated by passage of the bill.

That may not be the best way to make policy, but it’s certainly a good way to gain political advantage.

The graph above is based mainly on CBS/New York Times and ABC/Washington Post poll results since the early 1990s. Prior results are adapted from a chart in “Public Support for Congress” by Kelly Patterson and David Magleby in Public Opinion Quarterly (v56, 1992). Note that the line does not represent every data point available. For ease of presentation in the chart, poll results were averaged for those months when multiple polls were issued.

The Hard Sell

This post originally appeared as a guest column for In The Lobby.

Governor Christie laid out his initial budget plan on Tuesday in his typical take-no-prisoners manner. The pain train is rolling down the tracks.

The soft sell has never been part of his repertoire. His message was clear and so was his intent. What is not clear is whether he will be able to sell it to the public.

Here’s why.

Yes, the public was anticipating big cuts to state services and local aid. In fact, a good number of residents were demanding it. But when you look at the bottom line, some may wonder whether they got what they expected ... and whether the pain has been fairly spread – particularly when it comes to education funding.

This is as much an accounting issue – and lack of public awareness about the budget process – as it is about any of the specific cuts.

To the extent that the public has been paying attention to the budget process over the past few years, they have been told that the last governor, Jon Corzine, reduced state spending from $34.6 billion to $29.0 billion by the time he left office this year.

Governor Christie says the state appropriations portion of his budget for the 2011 fiscal year will be $28.3 billion.

Huh? There are all these massive cuts, but state spending is going to be reduced by less than $1 billion!

But there’s more! Christie’s budget also includes another $1 billion in state spending that will be covered by anticipated federal stimulus funds. This brings his spending total to $29.3 billion.

Whoa? That’s more than Corzine spent, right? Not quite.

You see, Christie points out that Jon Corzine’s total budget spent $32.2 billion, if you include $2.3 billion in federal stimulus money that the former governor did not put on the books.

So, if we include the stimulus funds in both budgets, then Christie’s budget reduces state spending by $2.9 billion – or 9% – from the 2010 fiscal year. (This, of course, assumes there will be no supplemental appropriations made during the coming year – which would be a first!)

So, now that’s settled.
Hold on a second, you say. What about that gaping $10.7 billion dollar deficit we kept being told about? Doesn’t this budget fall short to the tune of $7.8 billion?

Well, yes and no. You see, the $10.7 billion figure was based on the assumption that the state would actually fulfill its legal obligations to fully fund the school funding formula, fully fund the property tax rebate program, and fully fund our existing pension obligations.

The truth of the matter is we haven’t done any of those things since the administration of George McClellan (I’m just guessing here). The so-called structural deficit is a bit of a canard. Just because the law says we have to fund these programs doesn’t mean that it happens.

As a side note, is anyone else scratching their heads over the continued underfunding of our current pension obligation in Christie’s “no gimmicks” budget? I know he’s pushing hard for pension reforms, but when does underfunding current annual obligations cease to be a “one shot” to balance the budget? Just curious.

That being said, it’s probably best for the governor if he drops the structural deficit issue from his rhetoric. The public is already sold on the problem and conflicting numbers only serve to confuse the situation. He’ll have enough trouble convincing the public that a $29 billion budget for FY11 actually represents a $3 billion decrease from FY10.

Most significantly, Governor Christie will be called on in the coming weeks to explain why cuts in school aid make up more than $800 million of the $3 billion reduction. This will be the line of attack used by his opponents, because it’s likely to present the best chance of undermining public support for his entire budget. The governor has to be ready for it.

And then, we’ll have to go through this entire process again next year, when – barring some economic miracle that starts filling the state coffers – Christie has to figure out how to make up for the $1 billion in federal stimulus money that will disappear.

Now that’s going to take a real hard sell.

Attitudes about gay marriage in New Jersey

I was asked to write this analysis for a Gannett New Jersey feature, including Asbury Park Press, Daily Record, Home News Tribune, and Courier News. It appeared in Sunday's papers.

What is public opinion on gay marriage? That question was certainly at the forefront of New Jersey’s recent legislative debate on the issue. But a better question may have been whether the public actually has an opinion on gay marriage.

Polls taken on same-sex unions over the past few years, both nationally and in New Jersey, have been fairly consistent in their findings. When asked about the issue, the gut-level public reaction is divided. However, as a policy issue, most people aren’t all that concerned one way or the other.

New Jersey polls over the past six years show that support for gay marriage has drifted between 41 and 50 percent. At the same time, opposition has hovered within a nearly identical 40 to 50 percent range. At different times, supporters have outnumbered opponents by a few points and at other times, it’s been the other way around. The bottom line is that neither side of the issue has been able to claim a clear majority here in the Garden State.

It’s worth noting that both state and national polls do show strong majority support for civil unions. Basically, the public is solidly behind extending marital rights to same-sex couples. It’s just that some are uneasy about using the term “marriage” to describe those unions.

Even so, many people don’t hold their views on gay marriage all that deeply. This was born out by a near universal blip in the polls last year caused by a bizarre event.

There was a flurry of polling about gay marriage last spring that suggested a big jump in support for same-sex marriage. Between the spring of 2006 and late April 2009, a Quinnipiac Poll of New Jersey voters measured an 8 point increase in gay marriage support. Nationally, the ABC News/Washington Post and CBS News/New York Times polls saw support jump by 13 and 15 points, respectively. Polling organizations that waited until May 2009 to poll on gay marriage, though, saw smaller increases (Fox News/Opinion Dynamics up 6 points) or none at all (USA Today/Gallup actually went down 2 points). [See here for national polls.]

So what momentous event occurred in April 2009 to cause this shift in opinion? It was the Miss Universe contest, when Miss California, Carrie Prejean, announced that she was personally opposed to gay marriage. The ensuing media storm was fast and furious, with the number of press articles on gay marriage doubling during those weeks. Based on the polls, public opinion initially reacted negatively to Ms. Prejean’s position, but quickly returned to its prior standing once the media attention died down.

At the end of the day, few people, especially New Jerseyans, hold deeply-rooted opinions on this issue because they do not feel that either allowing or banning same-sex marriage would affect their own lives. Every Monmouth University/Gannett New Jersey Poll conducted during last year’s campaign for governor found no more than one percent of voters reporting that gay marriage was a burning issue for the state. This was reinforced by a Rutgers-Eagleton Poll released after the election that found only two percent of the public who said that gay marriage was the most important issue facing New Jersey and just another 15 percent who said it was among a handful of issues they consider very important.

Tellingly, that same Rutgers poll asked people how they would react if the legislature had passed a gay marriage bill. The majority said they would simply live with it.

New Jersey arguably has a greater diversity of cultures and lifestyles than any other state in the union. Our state motto "Liberty and Prosperity" could probably use a rewrite. Certainly, our present fiscal predicament undermines the validity of the current slogan, but my concern is more about better reflecting the Jersey mindset.

My nominee for a new Garden State motto is "Live and Let Live." And public opinion on same-sex marriage is simply one case that illustrates that point.

He Said, He Said. So What?

This post originally appeared as a guest column for In The Lobby.

Governor Chris Christie has wasted no time making his mark on Trenton. He has already used his veto power to make examples of fiscal waste. And last week, he called a special session of the legislature to declare a state of fiscal emergency.

In all honesty, the governor’s address to the legislature was pure political theater. He made no proposed cut that required legislative approval (although many Democratic legislators may disagree). Chris Christie knows that it is important to appear that he is firmly grasping the reins of an out-of-control state government. This is a guy who understands the power of symbolic acts.

During his speech, Christie likened the anticipated reaction of his critics to the cries of “unfair” he hears from his nine year old son, Patrick, who was sitting in the Assembly chamber. It is not for this observer to determine whether his proposed cuts and other actions to date are fair or not. Although I will say that embarrassing his son in public was definitely not cool. (We Patricks have to stick together.)

Those cries of “unfair” have already come from one unexpected quarter. The man Christie defeated. There has been a concerted effort by Jon Corzine’s camp to lay claim to the budget cuts proposed by Christie and to dispute the new governor’s deficit calculations.

I have no idea who is right in this debate, but it doesn’t really matter. As Winston Churchill said, “History is written by the victors.”

I understand that the former governor feels he hasn’t been given full credit for his administration’s achievements. That’s probably true, although the fault lies as much in his own inability to communicate those achievements as anything else. He was never a good student of how public opinion operates – and how important it can be to a politician’s success.

That is not to say that Chris Christie can’t overplay his hand on this. Just look at President Obama. While more Americans still blame the Bush administration for today’s economic woes, it’s Obama who now bears responsibility for the solutions (or lack thereof, depending on your point of view).

For Corzine’s part, his unwillingness to go gracefully threatens to put him in a class with former Vice President Dick Cheney. If Jon Corzine is at all concerned with his legacy, I don’t think he wants to go there.

The debate is not whether Christie is using somebody else’s ideas. If he executes them, he gets the credit. If Corzine’s tenure showed us anything, it’s that the need to execute is paramount.

This brings us back to the challenges faced by New Jersey’s current governor. Chris Christie was elected with less than half the vote. During the fall campaign, voters with an unfavorable opinion of the candidate were nearly as numerous as those with a favorable view (although that ratio has improved since his election). Importantly, most voters had little idea exactly what he was going to do as governor and they still don’t.

Make no mistake, though. Christie still has the upper hand. Why? A majority of New Jerseyans think the state has been on the wrong track for years. Trust in government at all levels is at a historic low. And the vast majority of New Jerseyans believe that their state government is fundamentally broken and requires a major overhaul.

In this environment, Christie gets the benefit of the doubt by default, regardless of what his predecessor may claim. There is no question that his proposals will bring about pain; pain that will eventually cause a public outcry. But his first step must be a clear demonstration that he is in charge of the process – that he is willing to take on the multi-tentacled octopus of state government and not let go until he’s got it under control.

To that end, last Thursday’s address put the legislature on notice. Chris Christie will be looking over their shoulder for the next four years. It is telling that Democratic legislators reacted to his speech by voicing their irritation at being “left out” of the process as much as they criticized the substance of the governor’s cuts. Mounting a “process” argument is never a good tactic, especially when your job approval rating dwells in the mid-20s.

As the Christie administration approaches the one-month mark, the governor is making all the right moves – from a public opinion standpoint. Will this era of good feeling last? Probably not. The cuts are severe, and there will be an even more brutal round of spending cuts when next year’s budget plan is unveiled.

Chris Christie understands that the window of opportunity for winning over public opinion is short. He has to let the public know that the pain he is proposing now will lead to prosperity in the near future. And he has to do that by demonstrating, in a very public way, that he will be overseeing every step of the process.

Thursday’s speech was one step in the strategy to solidify his reputation in that area and build up a reservoir of good will. The cuts have not yet hit home. When they do, Christie will need to hang on to every bit of public support he is currently accruing. The hue and cry is coming.

Will Christie provoke the ire of towns and school districts who claim that his cuts will lead to higher property taxes? Absolutely, and they may even win the public debate on that point.

Will the Democratically-controlled legislature try to stymie his efforts? They certainly will, and in some cases they will do so with good cause (although it may be difficult to justify that to the public).

Will Christie take a hands-off approach like his predecessor and just assume that the wheels of government will turn in the direction he wants them to go? In the immortal words of Jerry Seinfeld, “Not bloody likely!”

Obama and Christie: A Study in Contrasts

This post originally appeared as a guest column for In The Lobby.

Wednesday night was certainly an interesting one for political observers in New Jersey. The evening began with the Garden State’s new chief executive, Chris Christie, appearing on New Jersey 101.5 to talk about what he would do in his first year. An hour later, President Barack Obama took to the national airwaves to explain what happened in his first year and how the second will be different.

Both addresses acknowledged what is unquestionably the major underlying failure of government today. As President Obama stated in his State of the Union, “We face more than a deficit of dollars. We face a deficit of trust.” However, the two chief executives demonstrated different approaches to regaining the trust necessary to get us back on the right track.

Governor Christie appeared aggressive and direct in his responses to constituent questions. While he may have been short on details, he was crystal-clear on style. Speaking about some minor cost-cutting measures, he advised listeners that these cuts alone would not close the budget gap, but he showed that he understood the importance of such actions when he said, “I believe that symbolism is important. It says we ‘get it.’”

President Obama’s speech also included statements intended to convey that he “gets it.” For example: “We all hated the bank bailout.” And: “Jobs must be our number one focus in 2010.” He even tried to recast his health reform proposal as primarily a middle class measure. It was a decent speech, but way too long. (And the length only reinforced the sense that he is not focused on key concerns).

One major difference between the president’s and the governor’s broadcasts was the tone. Middle class voters want to know that their elected leaders truly appreciate the problems they face. Christie demonstrated that, while Obama fell short. When the president came to office, there was a sense that his cool demeanor would be an asset in Washington’s overheated partisan environment. His tone is now perceived as an unwillingness to engage in the heat of battle.

Admittedly, the president showed more passion in this speech than in any other past effort. It just wasn’t enough. Sure, he took to task members of both parties in Congress, the Supreme Court, and certain special interests. But if you watched him carefully, he almost seemed uncomfortable uttering those words.

Talking about the financial reform bill, Obama remarked that “The lobbyists are trying to kill it. Well, we cannot let them win this fight.” While it was an admonishment, you couldn’t exactly call it confrontational. Any claims to moral outrage were further undermined when he said, “I’m not interested in punishing banks.”

Well, guess what. The public feels that somebody needs to be punished – or at least appear to be punished. If things are going downhill, there has to be some enemy who is impeding progress.

Here in New Jersey, Governor Christie has been more than willing to identify an enemy of the public good. It’s public employee unions. As one of his first acts in office, he placed these unions under pay-to-play campaign restrictions. He also realizes that he has to cast the enemy carefully, saying, “No one should believe that the views of the teacher’s union are monolithic among teachers.”

Governor Christie also speaks like a man who is not willing to take guff from the legislature. His executive order to keep casinos open in the event of a government shutdown was seen as a shot across the bow for budget negotiations. He has the power of a line-item veto, and every indication is that he will use it. Some in the legislature may view Christie’s approach as paternalistic and condescending. But since a good chunk of New Jersey thinks their legislature is petty, the approach may be justified in the eyes of the public.

By the same token, the reactions of members of Congress to the State of the Union address was viewed by many as adolescent. In this case, though, Barack Obama is viewed as the parent whose threats are not taken seriously. It’s a perception he must change.

Obama has threatened to veto the financial reform bill if it is watered down by lobbyists. Here is one thing he can do to win back the public’s trust. First, clearly – and shrewdly – delineate what reforms are absolutely essential. Second, execute the veto if any are missing from the final bill.

The problem with Obama’s attempt to use his first State of the Union speech to reboot his presidency is that after a year in office, he is now judged by his actions, not by his promises. Obama may be able to claim some accomplishments, but not on his signature issue. The problem for Obama is that he drew the line in the sand on health care, and then he retreated from that line numerous times.

When you fumble on a defining issue, you lose the benefit of the doubt on other proposals. And you certainly don’t get a do-over. Are you taking notes, Governor Christie?

The wave of middle-class voter discontent that carried Obama to the White House in 2008 has now become a tsunami of frustration. It has resulted in Republican takeovers of the governorships in New Jersey and Virginia and the once-unthinkable U.S. Senate victory in Massachusetts. Voters in these states sent a simple message: “You promised that government would become more responsive to the middle class. Not only have you not delivered on that promise, but you haven’t even been trying.”

The public knows that government dysfunction is caused by a failure at all levels, but it’s the guy at the top who must take the blame. A willingness to throw some elbows to ensure that government gets back on course will determine whether both Barack Obama and Chris Christie, as well as the nation and the state, succeed.

New Governor Compares with John Adams

This post originally appeared as an Op-Ed in the Courier-Post.

One of the Christmas presents my daughter received was a bedtime book called “Good Night, New Jersey.” As she unwrapped it, the gift’s giver, my sister, [reflecting on the downhill trend of the state over the past few decades] remarked, “Soon, we’ll all be saying good night to New Jersey.” My sister is not alone. Polls indicate that the vast majority of New Jerseyans believe their elected representatives are more concerned with their own interests than the public’s. To say that the typical Garden State resident is cynical is an understatement.

This is the atmosphere under which Chris Christie took the reins of power last week – a time when trust in government is at a modern-day low. The public is skeptical that anything will change and yet change is exactly what they demand of their new governor.

Change is the word of the day, but the public is not necessarily concerned about specific policy directions or guiding ideologies. More importantly, voters are looking for a change in government responsiveness to the needs of the middle class. With Wall Street bailouts from Washington and special interest giveaways from Trenton, many New Jerseyans wonder why no one in government seems to be looking out for them.

The public is angry and they want someone who can give voice to that anger. The Garden State’s new governor appeared to understand this political reality when he noted that state voters “didn't pick me because they were looking for a subtle approach.”

As I made my way to the state capitol on Tuesday to see Christie sworn in as the state’s 55th Governor, I thought back to my youth, when we would hop the Speedline to Philly for a trip to Independence Hall. In those days, you could walk right into the building and go up to the desks in the Continental Congress chamber. I tended to gravitate to the seat occupied by John Adams, a man not known for taking the subtle approach.

Even with Ben Franklin’s savvy, Thomas Jefferson’s intelligence, and George Washington’s leadership, there is no doubt that the United States of America would not have come into being during that hot 1776 summer without John Adams’ pugnacity.

Adams would never win an award for congeniality, but he understood that nothing would change unless someone was willing to bang some heads together. Chris Christie seems to be cut from a similar cloth.

The question now is whether he can affect the change that voters want. The Monmouth University Polling Institute tracked a panel of voters throughout the fall campaign last year. After the election was over, we asked those voters what Chris Christie’s first task should be as governor.

The top issues named were cutting taxes (23 percent) and cutting spending (20 percent). Accomplishing both is no easy task when times are good. Achieving them during an economic downturn – especially with a legislature controlled by Democrats hostile to many of the program cuts Christie will need to make in order to balance the budget – will be near impossible. However, voters will ultimately judge Christie by his performance on these priorities.

Some people, including a good number of Garden State voters, say that desperate times call for desperate measures. That New Jersey needs someone who, like John Adams, is willing to kick up some dust and make some enemies in service of the greater good.

The tide of change has come to New Jersey. It’s important to remember that Chris Christie did not articulate any specific policy position during the campaign that could be taken as a mandate for action. He was elected to affect more fundamental change – change in how state government is perceived by the people. Chris Christie’s task is to figure out how to successfully ride the wave of change or risk being swept away by it.

"Today, Change Has Arrived… "

This post originally appeared as a guest column for In The Lobby.

By all accounts, Tuesday was a good day for Republicans, both in New Jersey and nationally. In New Jersey, Chris Christie took the oath of office, marking the GOP’s first position of power in Trenton since John Bennett’s tenure as Senate Co-President ended with his defeat in 2003.

In Massachusetts, Scott Brown scored an upset win in the battle for Ted Kennedy’s U.S. Senate seat, thus breaking the Democrat’s filibuster-proof majority. Many observers will view this win, as well as GOP victories in the Virginia and New Jersey governorships last November, as a repudiation of President Obama’s first year in office. The poll data don’t support such an overgeneralization, but still it’s difficult to ignore that the GOP is a party on the rise.

Republican partisans I have spoken with appear to be positively giddy with thoughts of huge gains in state and Congressional offices this coming November. That may indeed happen. But if it does, there are some cautionary notes for New Jersey’s Republican governor that shouldn’t be ignored.

The elections in Massachusetts, Virginia, and New Jersey had a few things in common. In each, the Democratic candidate, to some degree or another, was perceived as “out of touch” with the middle class. With automaker CEOs flying private jets to Washington to cry poverty and bank executives claiming they are doing “God’s work,” the American people are more than a tad upset with the elite class and all who coddle them.

In this environment, being seen as a working class hero is a decided plus. Scott Brown portrayed himself as a truck driving, blue collar guy. And here in the Garden State, there is no question that Chris Christie is a Jersey boy through and through. But that does not necessarily mean that all “home boy” benefits naturally accrue to the Republicans. It depends on the candidate, not the party label.

The PPP Poll issued Sunday, which accurately predicted a 5 point win for Brown, found that Massachusetts voters actually held a dimmer view of Congressional Republicans (22% favorable to 63% unfavorable) than they did of the Democrats (30% favorable to 55% unfavorable), even while voting to send a Republican to the Senate for the first time since 1978.

Another common thread in these recent elections is that voters are still looking for change. The Christie campaign rode that mantra to victory in Jersey, as did Scott Brown in the Bay State. But remember, voters have been in the mood for change for nearly four years.

They voted for Democrats in 2006 and 2008, and it looks like the tide is turning in the Republicans’ favor this year. But don’t be fooled into thinking this represents an ideological shift in the electorate that will propel the GOP to a lengthy return to power. Voters keep choosing change because they are getting a little punchy. Since they haven’t seen tangible results from the current crop of elected leaders, they will keep voting for change until they get it. If the current dynamic holds, we could potentially see frequent partisan switches in legislative and executive leadership over the next few election cycles.

Therein lies a lesson for New Jersey’s new chief executive. A change in style and rhetoric is not enough. You have to deliver results. At Tuesday night’s inaugural bash in Newark, Governor Christie’s friend, state Senator Joe Kyrillos exulted, “They said it couldn't be done. They said that in New Jersey we couldn't elect a tax-cutting, pro-growth, job-creating governor.”

Well, the jury is still out on that claim. To his credit, Governor Christie acknowledges that when New Jerseyans come up to him, the most frequent message is, “Now, do what you said you would do.” That is not a friendly piece of advice. It is a job requirement. Christie must remember that it was middle-class independent voters who put him into power.

It’s a lesson that the folks in the White House has yet to learn. Look at the drop in Barack Obama’s approval ratings over the first year of his term. GOPers say this is because the American people disagree with his domestic policy agenda. I, on the other hand, view that declining support as the result of a middle-America who feel that the President does not “have their backs.” For example, the economic stimulus package is seen as only benefitting the people who got us into this mess. The re-appointment of Ben Bernanke to head the Federal Reserve Board only underlines that point.

Furthermore, the president lost the health care reform debate not because of any particular policy item – the polls clearly show that Americans have little understanding about what is included in the proposal. Obama’s major mistake was in trying to sell the so-called the societal benefit of insuring the poor. If he had focused his message on keeping big insurance company premiums under control and not arbitrarily denying coverage to hard-working middle class Americans, he probably could have won support for the controversial “public option” months ago, let alone the entire package.

This lack of a populist touch is very much like what we saw in the administration Christie replaces here in New Jersey. From the proposing toll hikes to pay down state debt to mounting the ramparts for state unions, Jon Corzine never connected with the change that hard working middle-class families require. Based on his rhetoric so far, Chris Christie is not going to make the same mistake. But rhetoric will not be enough.

Governor Christie’s repeated refrain in his inaugural address was, “Today change has arrived.” Well, he’s got his work cut out for him. He has less than two months to unveil how he will close an $8 billion (or more) budget gap. That means there will be a lot of New Jerseyans are going to feel some pain.

Christie then has to navigate this budget through a Democratically-controlled legislature where he’s likely to meet outright hostility from the Assembly, if not the Senate as well. And he has to sell the pain to the voters who put him into office. (And this guy actually wanted the job!)

Change is coming to New Jersey one way or another. Governor Christie has the opportunity to take control of that change now or be swept away by it in four years time.

What to Watch for in Today’s NJ Senate Vote

Today, the New Jersey State Senate is scheduled to vote on what could be its most volatile piece of legislation of the session. Obviously, I’m talking about S1036 – the bill to grant children of illegal immigrants in-state tuition rates at New Jersey’s public colleges and universities.

I bet you thought I was going to say same-sex marriage, weren’t you? Sure, that issue has been getting the lion’s share of media attention (and I’ll comment on that issue in more detail below). But in terms of a legislative vote’s potential impact in the 2011 elections, there is little question in my mind which of these issues could be more controversial in the long-term.

UPDATE: The Senate postponed the vote on S1036 to Monday 1/11. Possibly, the potential political fallout may have caught up to some legislators.

While the marriage bill debate has been hot, the fire is likely to fizzle for most voters if the bill were to pass. As I wrote last month, the majority of New Jerseyans do not have a strong opinion on this issue. Of course, that’s not to say that for a very vocal minority, this marriage issue will stay alive regardless of today’s outcome (again, more on that below).

For many more voters, though, an issue that is likely to stick in their crawl is granting any privileges to illegal immigrants. A Monmouth University/Gannett New Jersey Poll from last year bears this out. A majority of 51% considered illegal immigration to be a very serious problem in New Jersey and another 28% found the problem somewhat serious. Only 18% said it was either not too or not at all serious.

When asked whether illegal immigrants domiciled in New Jersey should be allowed to pay in-state tuition rates at public higher education institutions, only 20% said yes. When asked whether the children of those immigrants should be afforded that privilege, the affirmative vote only went up to 32%. Moreover, 22% of the public said that these children should not even be allowed to attend New Jersey’s state colleges, regardless of what they were willing to pay.

The level of public antipathy appears to be more intense for illegal immigration than it is for same-sex marriage. History suggests that attitudes towards immigrants ebb and flow with economic conditions, with public opinion growing more negative during austere times.

My own ancestors came to this country from Ireland and Italy around the turn of the prior century. I vividly remember my grandparents (the children of immigrants themselves) recounting how they were called WOPs (“without papers,” i.e. undocumented), particularly during the Great Depression. Today’s attitudes are really nothing new.

New Jersey tends to be more tolerant of cultural diversity and all that entails. [You can find other Monmouth/Gannett polls on Garden State immigration attitudes here and here.] This is probably more out of necessity than anything else, since we have the third-highest proportion of foreign born residents among all 50 states. One out of every five New Jerseyans was born in another country!

However, if the current economic conditions persist into the 2011 election cycle, we may see a vote on S1036 re-appear as a campaign issue in contested races (assuming the new legislative map that year gives us some competitive districts).

Same-Sex Marriage
Now, a few thoughts on the “less contentious” vote. Among the 39 sitting Senators, 21 were in the state legislature in 2006 and cast “Yea” votes for civil unions. If they repeated that vote on same-sex marriage, the debate would clearly be over. However, at least eight of them have publicly stated (or voted in committee) that they will not support same-sex marriage. And a handful have made no firm commitment either way.

I searched media reports from that time and could find only two comments from any of those 21 legislators. In October 2006, Tom Kean issued the following statement: “I still believe that marriage is and should be between one man and one woman and I would support an amendment to the state constitution reaffirming that definition.” Of course, he was in the throes of a U.S. Senate campaign then. He ended up voting for civil unions one month after losing that election.

On the flip side of the coin, then-Assemblywoman Jennifer Beck gave what appears to be fairly unequivocal support to same-sex unions during floor debate on December 14, 2006: “I think today is much more a matter of equal rights more than anything else. Committed, loving relationships deserve equal consideration by our laws. So today I rise in support of the foundation of our democracy, which indeed is equal consideration by all of our laws.” This was shortly before she launched her successful campaign to unseat Senator Ellen Karcher in 2007. Her rhetoric appears to have tempered somewhat since that time.

Keep an eye on all 21, though. I’ll be most interested in the rationale given by those who cast different votes on civil unions and same-sex marriage.

UPDATE: The bill failed by a vote of 14-20. Among the 21 senators who voted for civil unions in 2006, just 10 voted yes on gay marriage. Among the remainder, 8 voted no (Bateman, Beck, Girgenti, Tom Kean, Madden, Sacco, Turner, Van Drew), 2 abstained (Sarlo, Sweeney) and 1 was not present (Ciesla). Of these legislators, only Senator Girgenti made a public statement explaining his no vote.

I can understand why a person would be opposed to civil unions (and thus gay marriage). They believe that civil society has a vested interest in maintaining and recognizing the union of one man and one woman and that the union of two people of the same sex is deleterious to society.

On the other hand, I’m genuinely puzzled by the argument that gay and lesbian couples deserve all the same rights as male and female married couples, but they just can’t use that term to describe the state’s recognition of those rights. Based on testimony at last month’s committee hearing and other public comments, the root of that distinction is based on religion. In other words, the state has a vested interest in protecting a particular religious definition of the word “marriage,” although it does not have the same interest in maintaining the preservation of that religion’s view of the institution itself.

By the way, there is a very good reason for casting a yes vote for civil unions then and a no vote for gay marriage now. It’s just that I’ve yet to hear anyone use it. In October 2006, the New Jersey Supreme Court basically punted the issue to the legislature. The court ruled that same-sex couples deserved access to marital rights, but it directed the legislature to determine how to do it.

Even if you were opposed to civil unions, one reason to have voted for it would have been to avoid making matters worse by defeating the bill and throwing the matter back to the court, who would have likely declared that same-sex couples should have access to existing marriage laws. As I said, I haven’t heard anyone use this argument to defend a difference for their vote then and now, but it's the only one I can think of based purely on rationale.

Regardless of the outcome of this legislation, I hope, for the sake of the state, that this is an end to legislative action on it for a while. If it fails, there is no chance that the incoming governor would sign it anyway. If it passes and is signed into law, I hope that opponents won’t tie up the legislature with constitutional amendments to define marriage. Our near-bankrupt state has bigger fish to fry right now.

Who Should Vote On Civil Marriage?

This post originally appeared as a guest column for In The Lobby.

As the New Jersey Senate prepares to vote on the “Freedom of Religion and Equality in Civil Marriage Act,” a number of editorialists have asked for my take on public opinion about gay marriage (or marriage equality, depending on one’s point of view). The polls conducted in the past year or two have been quite clear. At a gut level, the public is divided. As a policy issue, most people don’t really care one way or the other.

All the recent polls show support for same-sex marriage in the mid to upper 40s and opposition also in the mid to upper 40s, with the remainder having no opinion. If the state legislature decided to recognize same-sex marriage, a recent Eagleton Poll suggests that most residents would live with decision, while 4-in-10 would want to see the constitution amended to overturn it. However, this question only indicates an overall preference. It does not tell us how important the issue is in the context of all other issues. In other words, is this something that would get sizable numbers of voters up in arms? And my response is, not likely.

A Monmouth University poll from February indicated that a bare majority of New Jerseyans hold “strong” opinions on the issue – and again that is fairly divided, 25% in favor to 30% opposed. And only a subset of either faction would take the outcome of this week’s vote as a call to action.

Moreover, gay marriage was merely a blip on the radar screen of voter’s concerns during this year’s race for governor – a one or two percent blip to be exact. From a purely political standpoint, social issues become election issues only when nothing else is on the table. So, on the off chance that the Christie administration is able to plug the budget gap AND reduce property taxes, then perhaps gay marriage could be an issue in 2011.

So why not just put this up to a public vote and be done with it, as many opponents of gay marriage have called for? I am a strong advocate for including the public voice in all areas of public policy. The mode of expressing that voice, though, must be appropriate to the situation.

The public should absolutely have the final say on any situation that involves state borrowing. I also think a constitutional convention – where the public gives a straight up or down vote on the outcome – is worth serious consideration in New Jersey right now.

But the founders of our country – or at least James Madison in the Federalist Papers – were fairly clear that any issue affecting the rights of a minority should be determined within a deliberative setting. And general elections almost never meet the criterion of being deliberative – as anyone who followed this year’s vacuous gubernatorial race will attest.

A public vote on gay marriage also opens up the question of what other thorny issues should be put on the ballot. How about access to abortion? In a hypothetical situation where the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, I’m guessing that the same people who would support a public referendum on parental notification or limits on late-term terminations would be extremely wary of placing an all-out abortion ban on New Jersey’s ballot. It’s a slippery slope.

One key question in the current debate is whether civil union couples are being denied rights they are entitled to under the current law because their civil contract is not called “marriage.” The Civil Union Review Commission certainly heard many stories of civil union partners being denied rights accorded to them under the New Jersey Supreme Court decision in Lewis v. Harris.

I actually met with the Commission in August 2007 to discuss a potential study on civil unions. Ideally, the research would have interviewed a sample of civil union couples and a matching sample of married couples to see if the former were systematically experiencing any roadblocks that the latter were not. For various reasons (costs, logistics), the study was never conducted.

In the end, those empirical answers are immaterial for those who argue there is no compelling reason for government to create two separate structures to recognize the same contractual relationship. This got me to thinking about why the state even bothers to recognize marriage in the first place. (My penchant for asking these types of questions is probably the reason why I receive so few cocktail party invitations.)

I suppose if one spouse goes out to work, then there’s a reason for the state to recognize that the stay-at-home spouse is contributing to the economy and therefore should be afforded rights. But can’t that end up giving more benefits or, conversely, penalizing dual-earner families and single parents? (I can sense those party invitations rolling in about now).

I don’t know the answer to those questions, but it seems that at the end of the day government recognition of marriage is based largely on social convention. In other words, a major reason why government recognizes marriage today, specifically marriage between one man and one woman, is because governments through the ages always have.

I am not sure what this means, or should mean, for the upcoming Senate vote. But I do believe that it is always a good practice to periodically examine things that exist “just because” and ask why.

Now, if we could apply the same logic to New Jersey’s state constitution, we’d really be onto something.

Electorate was out to boot incumbent

This post originally appeared as an Op-Ed in the Courier-Post.

The conventional wisdom is that you just can't beat a superior bankroll. That might have proven true for the Phillies, but it certainly wasn't the case for Chris Christie.

A very disgruntled Garden State electorate came out to vote on Tuesday. In the last Monmouth University/Gannett New Jersey Poll taken before the election, only 36 percent of voters said they approved of the job Jon Corzine has done as governor. You just can't win re-election with numbers that low, even if you outspend your opponent by $20 million.

Most pre-election polls showed the race to be tight right up to the final days. So why couldn't Chris Christie seal the deal earlier against such an unpopular incumbent? Well, mainly because voters aren't thrilled with any politicians right now.

The New Jersey exit poll showed that about half of those who voted on Tuesday had a negative opinion of both Corzine and Christie, including 39 percent who felt strongly unfavorable toward the Democrat and 30 percent who felt strongly unfavorable toward the Republican. Only about 1-in-5 felt strongly favorable toward either candidate, which means that many voters cast their ballots for a candidate they weren't particularly thrilled with.

I held a focus group with undecided voters the week before the election that underlined this point. When these voters were asked which member of their family each candidate would be, Corzine was described as a rich uncle you rarely see and Christie was seen as an annoying brother-in-law. Tellingly, these voters said they really wouldn't want either guy as part of their family.

The bottom line is that voters are fed up with partisan politics in general. Christie got the job for the next four years simply because he wasn't the incumbent. His main campaign message was that New Jersey needed change. That made sense. According to the exit poll, the number one quality voters wanted in a governor was someone who could bring about change. But something was missing.

In last year's presidential race, voters chose to go with "hope and change." This year, New Jerseyans were simply desperate for change. The hope is gone. It has been replaced by frustration and insecurity.

I found it interesting that Chris Christie used the word "hope" very few times in his victory speech Tuesday night. Hopefulness was overwhelmed by an aggressive urgency, culminating in the victor's promise to turn Trenton upside down. Perhaps the time for hope is past. Perhaps we need someone who's willing to bang some heads together.

Corzine lost on Tuesday not just because of the job he has done over the past four years, although proposing a huge toll hike in order to reduce state debt didn't particularly endear him to the state. In fact, it was the single most important factor behind his negative job ratings and one of the key reasons he did so poorly among voters in Central Jersey and the Delaware Valley.

Voters ultimately rejected Corzine because he failed to adequately address 15 years of declining trust in state government and an ever-growing tax burden. It may have been that his CEO approach was not up to the job. It may be that the task itself is impossible. Regardless, voters decided they would be better off with a corruption-busting prosecutor in charge of righting the ship.

New Jerseyans may have been short on hope when they went out to vote on Tuesday. But they were certainly ready for a change.

New Jersey: Who Voted, Where and How?

Well, the pundits said that turnout would be the name of the game in New Jersey this year. The problem is we were looking at the wrong type of turnout. While we were busy focusing on core Democratic areas, the republicans upped the ante on their own turf.

Overall, Garden State turnout was down about 3 points from the last gubernatorial race. Based on my analysis of votes counts as of Wednesday, it currently stands at 45% of registered voters. When undervotes and provisional ballots are taken into account, total turnout should be about 46% - well below the 48.5% prior low mark set in 2005. If anyone still doesn’t think that New Jersey voters are fed up with their state government, just take another look at that number.

Jon Corzine’s margin went from a positive 240,000 four years ago to a negative 100,000 this year. In terms of vote percentage, he went from a +10.8% plurality to a -4.6% deficit, a swing of 15.4 points to the Republican.

The interesting thing is that both of these phenomena – lower turnout and plurality shift – did not occur across all parts of the state in quite the same way.

To make it easier to discuss, I’ve grouped New Jersey’s 21 counties into seven regions. Let’s take them one by one, in the order of what I personally saw as most interesting.

Route 1 Corridor [Mercer, Middlesex, Union]:
I previously said this is the region I would be paying the most attention to, and it certainly did not disappoint. These three counties are made up of a mix of working class ethnic groups, with some professionals scattered throughout, who are really concerned with taxes and cost of living issues. They tend to be independent-minded in their thinking, but Democratic in their voting.

Republican Christie Whitman actually won this region by 5,000 votes in 1993 but lost it by 39,000 votes to native son Jim McGreevey in 1997. That Democratic margin increased to 105,000 votes in McGreevey’s successful 2001 run, and produced a very healthy 78,000 vote plurality for Corzine in 2005. Corzine also won this region’s vote this year, but by a paltry 19,000 votes.

So did these voters switch their allegiances and go with Christie? Actually it looks like Democratic voters in this region simply did not show up. Turnout was 44.2% 41.8% in this region, down from 49.9% in 2005. Specifically, it was down 5 points in Middlesex County, 6 points in Union County and 5 an unbelievable 16 points in Mercer County.

Mercer County, the home of many state government workers (!), had an abysmal 38% turnout rate, one of the second lowest county turnout levels in the state. This is noteworthy because Mercer usually outperforms the state average. On the other hand, the 17.2 point margin Corzine got here is actually in line with his 2005 performance. So who knows what went on in Mercer? [That’s not a rhetorical question. I really want to know.] [Update 11/07: Mercer posted corrected vote numbers, bringing total county turnout up to 45.9%. Thanks to Mercer Dem Chair Rich McClellan for alerting me.].

In Middlesex County, though, there was a clear shift from Corzine to the Republican. The governor won this – the new bellwether county (?) – by 17.6 points in 2005. He lost it this year by 2.7 points – a 20 point swing away from Corzine. That vote share swing is the third largest county level shift, after Monmouth and Ocean.

Northern Shore [Monmouth, Ocean]:
What the heck happened in Monmouth and Ocean? Let’s take it year by year. Christie Whitman won these two counties by 34,000 in 1993 and 58,000 in 1997. The region went Democrat in 2001, giving Jim McGreevey a slight 8,000 vote edge, before returning to form in 2005 with a 37,000 vote advantage for Doug Forrester.

So, how well did the Republican candidate do here this year? Try a 134,000 vote margin! Yes, you read that correctly. That represents a 36 point margin, when 25 would have been considered extraordinary.

How did it happen? A lot of Northern Shore residents came out to vote, that’s how. Turnout was at least 50.2%, about 5 points above the state average. In 2005, it was 50.1%, just 1.6 points above the state average. While turnout dropped 3 points across the state, it actually went up in Monmouth and Ocean! I’ve heard conflicting reports about whether there was any extra GOTV effort here. While there wasn't the standard street-level operation that Dems typically use, I'm told that Ocean GOP Executive Director Rob Cresson used sophisticated micro-targeted outreach (e.g. letters, calls) to keep these voters on the boil throughout the camapign.

And I do know one thing. Voters need to have a reason to get enthused enough to come out in large numbers, and nothing riles up a voter like anger against an incumbent. The source of that ire may be found in a New York Times interview Jon Corzine gave a week before the election. In that interview, he raised the possibility of revisiting his ill-fated toll plan from January 2008. That’s the plan that single-handedly caused his job approval rating to drop from a net +3 to a -15 in just two months. The plan that I kept wondering why Christie wasn’t hammering away at. Well, Corzine did his opponent a favor by reminding these Parkway-dependent commuters why they didn’t like him in the first place.

A look back at Monmouth/Gannett polling during the time of the toll plan debate points to a real possibility that the toll plan played more heavily in this region than any other. In March 2008, 53% of the state said they were paying a lot of attention to the toll plan, but interest was highest in the Northern Shore region at 73%. Statewide, 56% of New Jerseyans opposed the plan, while 15% who supported it and 28% who had no opinion. In Monmouth and Ocean counties, a whopping 73% opposed it compared to just 13% who favored it and only 14% who had no opinion. The region with the next highest level of opposition was the Route 1 Corridor at 62%.

It’s also worth noting that when Governor Corzine went on his town hall tour to promote the plan, he probably received his worst receptions in Marlboro and Toms River. Coincidentally, Congressman Frank Pallone probably had the angriest crowd of any in the state during the health care reform town halls last summer. That was in Monmouth County. The state’s angriest voters seem to live along the Northern Shore. And I always thought ocean breezes were supposed to be soothing. At any rate, it would be fair to say that the toll hike plan was a real sore spot with Northern Shore voters.

Delaware Valley [Burlington, Camden, Gloucester]:
This was supposed to produce solid turnout for Democrats, led by the Camden County organization and organized labor. In 2005, this region produced a sizable 46,000 vote advantage for Corzine. This year, it could only muster 11,000. This area of the state was supposed to be strong, based on the Democratic Party’s tight hold on local offices here. It now seems hat hold was not all that strong. This region’s 42.3% turnout was down by 4.8 points from 2005, a slightly larger than average drop. Moreover, Corzine lost Burlington and Gloucester counties this time, after winning them both in 2005.

Burlington is not a surprise, as it has exceeded a 5% plurality for any candidate only once in the past five gubernatorial elections. Gloucester, on the other hand, has been a solid Democratic performer, with pluralities between 10.6% and 18.6% since 1993. This year, Gloucester went Republican by 3.7%, which may have had as much to do with local political issues as with the governor’s race.

The biggest disappointment, though, has to be Camden County, home of the vaunted Norcross political organization. Democrats running for governor over the previous four elections averaged a 27 point win here. Corzine could only manage a 15 point edge. This is supposed to be a well-oiled machine. Apparently, someone forgot to take it out for a lube job before the election.

Urban Core [Essex, Hudson]:
This is THE Democratic base region. In 2005, Corzine earned a 147,000 vote plurality. It was reduced to 116,00 this year. The Corzine camp was probably hoping for about 130,000 votes from here (which, by the way, would still not have been enough given what happened in other regions). Turnout was an abysmal 39.5% in these two counties. This was to be expected, though, since Urban Core turnout is usually about 6 points below the state average. But this also means that there was no “Obama 2.0” surge at work. This was not a repudiation of the president. It’s just that even a president who is wildly popular among these voters was not enough of a proxy to get them to vote for Jon Corzine.

Northeast [Bergen, Passaic]:
This has traditionally been the bellwether for New Jersey, especially Bergen County. Whoever wins the northeast, wins the election. Except this year. Jon Corzine still won both counties here even though Chris Christie won the election. But the Democrat won the Northeast by 40,830 votes less than he did in 2005. Turnout was about average – at 46.8% it was 1.4 points higher than the state average, similar to 2005 when it was 0.9 points higher. Based on the closeness of the polls and Corzine’s unpopularity, these numbers are pretty in line with expectations, especially since the Republicans were surprise victors in both county’s freeholder races.

Western Hills [Hunterdon, Morris, Somerset, Sussex, Warren]:
This is die-hard Republican country. Turnout was 51.5% – about 6 points higher than the state average. In 2005, it was 5 points higher. So the turnout here is not all that surprising. A small jump would be expected given how competitive this race had been. The 118,000 vote plurality racked up by Christie may look like a big gain compared to Doug Forrester’s 60,000 vote win here in 2005. However, the last time Republicans were in a competitive race for governor – 1993 and 1997 – Christie Whitman picked up an average 100,000 vote margin each time. So, this year’s result was never outside the realm of reasonable expectations.

Southern Shore [Atlantic, Cape May, Cumberland, Salem]:
This region usually provides mixed results, but has been trending more Democrat as of late. Not this year. Corzine only won one county here, and ended up 6,800 votes behind Christie in this sparsely populated region.

New Jersey Turnout as percentage of Registered Voters

Region	2009	2005	Change
STATE TOTAL	45.1%	48.5%	-3.4%
Northeast	46.8%	49.4%	-2.6%
Urban Core	39.5%	42.1%	-2.6%
Rt 1 Corridor	41.8%	49.5%	-8.1%
Western Hills	51.5%	53.4%	-1.9%
Northern Shore	50.2%	50.1%	+0.1%
Delaware Valley	42.3%	47.1%	-4.8%
Southern Shore	42.9%	46.5%	-3.6%

Corzine Vote Margin

Region	2009	2005	Plurality shift	Shift in % vote share
STATE TOTAL	-99,285	239,280	-338,565	-15.4%
Northeast	13,743	54,573	-40,830	-11.5%
Urban Core	115,783	147,163	-31,380	-7.7%
Rt 1 Corridor	18,893	77,822	-58,929	-14.2%
Western Hills	-118,154	-60,000	-58,154	-16.0%
Northern Shore	-134,267	-37,638	-96,629	-25.6%
Delaware Valley	11,494	46,292	-34,798	-10.8%
Southern Shore	-6,777	11,068	-17,845	-12.4%

Note: 2009 numbers are based on unofficial returns. Final vote totals should increase overall turnout by about 1 point, which is still well below the 2005 turnout

New Jersey Exit Poll Wrap-Up

For this year's gubernatorial election, the Monmouth University Polling Institute joined with NJN News and the Gannett New Jersey newspaper group to provide some "home-grown" analysis of the New Jersey exit polls.

The exit polls were conducted by Edison Research (of Somerville, NJ) for the National Election Pool (the major TV and cable networks and the AP).

Here are links to summaries of the exit poll stories we ran Tuesday night:
Top Issues
Did a Property Tax Plan Matter?
Candidate Favorability
Candidate Qualities
Independent Voters
The Daggett Factor
The Obama Factor
The Democratic Base
Gender, Age and Race
Negative Ads

And for good measure, here's what I was looking for before the results came in:
What to Look for In the New Jersey Election

Editorial note: I have heard some questions about why education, the budget, and others issues did not come up as voters concerns in the exit poll. Especially since they made the list in pre-election polls. Well, there was a difference in how the questions were asked. Most pre-election polls, including Monmouth/Gannett, asked the issue question in open-ended fashion, i.e. “Name your top issue.” The exit poll however made voters choose from among only four: property taxes, economy & jobs, health care, and corruption.

Some have noted that corruption came up somewhat higher in the exit poll than in the pre-election polls. My personal view is that some “government spending/budget” voters chose “corruption” as the choice among the four that came closest to their own concern (i.e. “waste fraud, and abuse”). In fact, I had strongly suggested to the Exit Poll group that they should add a fifth category (“government spending”) to their list. So, we’ll have to live with the supposition that the “corruption” number in the exit poll also includes voters most concerned with government waste in general.

Congratulations and onward...

Congratulations to Governor-Elect Christie. Now for the hard part. You said New Jersey needs a good, hard shake-up. Here's hoping you can do it.

Also, kudos to Scott Rasmussen (of Ocean Grove) for the poll which most closely resembled the final election result. Oddly enough, it was taken 5 days before the election. I guess the lesson there is to quit while you're ahead :) The other so-called robo-call pollsters (PPP and Survey USA) also did a good job reflecting the margin of victory (albeit while overstating Daggett's support level by 4 to 5 points).

I'll spend Wednesday updating all the exit poll stories I posted on Tuesday night, many of which were based on preliminary results. So if you check back later, some of the numbers may have changed by a point or two.

It's been a wild election with an outcome that no one expected -- i.e. a 100,000 vote margin for the victor. I'll be examining the returns to figure out why. But my first stop will probably be a look at the astronomical Christie vote in Monmouth and Ocean counties. It appears the GOP picked up a few GOTV tricks in the past year or so.

Exit Poll: The Democratic Base

The following analysis of the National Election Pool/Edison Research exit poll was provided for NJN News and the Gannett New Jersey Newspapers:

Polls taken during the summer showed New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine with serious problems among his partisan base. His support among African-American and Hispanic voters was below average and union members were trending toward Chris Christie. Overall, he was significantly underperforming among voters who called themselves Democrats.

Corzine’s base seems to have come home, although it was not enough in the end. Among Democratic voters who cast ballots today, the governor picked up 86% of the vote, including 88% among African-Americans, 65% among Hispanics, 61% among union members, and 83% among political liberals.

In last year’s U.S. Senate race, Frank Lautenberg garnered 89% support among Democratic voters, including 87% among African-Americans, 82% among Hispanics, 68% among union members, and 87% among political liberals. In the 2006 U.S. Senate contest, Bob Menendez took 92% of the Democratic vote, including 82% among African-Americans, 71% among Hispanics, 63% among union members, and 87% among political liberals.

Among voters who say they also voted for Corzine in the 2005 election, the incumbent held onto only 78% of his support, while 17% of prior Corzine voters went for Republican Chris Christie.

Among those who supported GOP nominee Doug Forrester in the 2005 contest, an overwhelming 96% went with Christie, and only 3% voted for Corzine.

Among those who did not vote in the last gubernatorial election but cast a ballot today, Christie took a 50% to 39% advantage over Corzine.

Exit Poll: NJ Vote by Gender, Age and Race

The following analysis of the National Election Pool/Edison Research exit poll was provided for NJN News and the Gannett New Jersey Newspapers:

In most states, Democrats tend to do better among women, while Republicans fare well with male voters. That hasn’t been the case in recent New Jersey elections, though. Both Barack Obama and Frank Lautenberg in 2008 and Bob Menendez in 2006 won over both men and women voters.

That Garden State gender scenario did not play out in today’s race for governor. Jon Corzine did take 50% of the female vote compared to 45% who went for Chris Christie. But Christie won the male vote by 53% to 40%.

Trends since the 2006 election also indicate that Democratic candidates in New Jersey easily win among younger and middle age adults, while Republicans tend to gain a slim advantage among senior citizen voters. In this year’s race for governor, Democrat Jon Corzine was only able to claim a decisive win among voters under age 30, where he bested Christie by a 57% to 36% margin. The 30 to 44 year old age group went for Christie by 50% to 44%. New Jersey voters age 45 to 64 were more divided, 48% for Christie to 46% for Corzine. Christie, though, was the clear winner among those age 65 and older by a sizable 55% to 40% margin.

While Corzine picked up typical Democratic margins among minority voters, Christie did particularly well among whites. Black voters went for Corzine over Christie by 88% to 9% and Hispanics did the same by 65% to 32%.

Christie won the white vote, though, by 25 points - 59% to 34%. Typically, New Jersey Democrats run about even or only a few points behind the GOP candidate among this group of voters.