Shut Up Voters, the Deal has been Made!

On February 1 2010, the New Jersey Senate held a hearing on Senate Bill 920.  This bill, along with the companion bill in the Assembly, seeks to strip the existing right of voters to put proposals like the taxpayer bailout of Morgan Stanley to a vote of the people.  Why do New Jersey politicians want to silence voters?  Senator Jim Whelan (D) said it quite plainly at the February hearing on the bill:

“What this bill does is it ensures to the developer, it ensures to the financial community, that the deal that they make, is the deal that they make.” Got it?  Well, one pesky citizen at the hearing by the name of Seth Grossman of the group Liberty and Prosperity innocently asked what deal had been made.  The impertinence!   Grossman was promptly ejected from the hearing by Senator Lesniak, the Chair of the committee, for having the gall to ask the question.  Boy, those politicians sure get testy when voters start asking questions.  Listen to the exchange between Senator Lesniak and Grossman — Grossman vs Lesniak