Senator Anthony Bucco (R-Morris) released the following statement in response to media reports that Deputy Speaker of the General Assembly, Alfred E. Steele (D-35), and the Chairman of the Assembly State Government Committee, Mims Hackett Jr. (D-27) were arrested today and charged with demanding and taking cash bribes to influence the award of public contracts.
“Today’s arrests are a stark reminder of the dangers of dual office holding, and why the recently-enacted so-called ‘ban’ of this practice is another in a long list of phony reforms that will do nothing to repair the massive ethical breach that has overtaken Trenton.
The chairman of the committee that has jurisdiction over ethics reform in the General Assembly has been arrested by the F.B.I., yet, thanks to the dual office-holding bill signed by the Governor, he can continue to hold dual offices indefinitely. The Governor should have shown real leadership on this issue and conditionally-vetoed the weak bill given to him by his allies in the Legislature, and instead enacted the complete ban on dual office holding advocated by Republican legislators.
New Jersey’s government is once again a national laughingstock, and the Governor and the Democrats in the Legislature have proven themselves utterly incapable of policing a climate of corruption that has enveloped State Government.”
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Link to Post:
http://www.senatenj.com/index.php/bucco/arrests-highlight-failure-of-dual-office-holding-law/118
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September 10, 2007
