NJ Supreme Court Halts Effort to Recall Senator Menendez

Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ)

Tea party activists targeted for recall under state law  U.S. Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) - who in 2010 chaired the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee.  The New Jersey Supreme Court, 4-2, stopped the effort, saying that it could not permit the waste of resources on a state law-based recall effort that is forbidden under the federal Constitution. 


Two Justices dissented decrying the decision as disenfranchisement of the voters.  But no voter in U.s. history has ever cast a ballot to recall a United States Senator.  The florid dissent by Justice Rivera Soto, joined by Justice Helen Hoens could well have garnered a third vote but for the vacancy created by the expiration of the seven year term of John Wallace.  The Democratic leadership in the state Senate has refused to schedule hearings on his successor until Wallace's 70th birthday - when his retirement would have been compelled by state law.   That is a protest against Gov. Chris Christie's openly ideological refusal to nominate for tenure the centrist jurist. 


The dissenters could well garner a fourth vote when Governor Christopher Christie has another vacancy to fill.  He has vowed to remake the New Jersey judiciary which he considers too liberal - citing its broad zoning mandate to permit low and moderate income housing, and three-decade campaign balanced funding of urban and suburban schools.


The decision is HERE .