'Pay to play' ban endorsed by 4 in 13th District Senate race

Published in the Asbury Park Press 10/21/03

By ANDREA ALEXANDER
STAFF WRITER

NEPTUNE -- Limiting private donors' influence in government through major campaign finance reform and banning the practice known as "pay to play" are considered top priorities by all four candidates running for state Senate in the 13th Legislative District.

The candidates appeared before the Asbury Park Press editorial board yesterday and pledged to champion ethics reforms that would put an end to multiple office-holding, nepotism and awarding no-bid contracts, while requiring full financial disclosure for lawmakers.

Sen. Joseph M. Kyrillos Jr., R-Monmouth, is being challenged by Democrat William E. Flynn, Green Party candidate Greg Orr and Mac Dara Lyden, who is running on the New Jersey Conservative Party ticket.

Kyrillos, the state Republican Party chairman, repeated his call for Gov. McGreevey to convene a special session of the Legislature to begin dealing with reform immediately, while his challengers outlined their ideas for changing the system if elected.

While all candidates agreed reform is necessary, the challengers were skeptical that anything could be accomplished in a politically charged session before the election.

"I think the danger of a special session is you are not going to get real reform," said Flynn. But he added that he does support calling the Legislature back in session so work could begin on rewriting ethics laws.

'Too much money'

Kyrillos said he is calling for the session because work needs to start immediately.

"As the state party chairman and a senator who has raised more money than most, I can tell you there is too much money out there," Kyrillos said. "We are not going to get all of the private money out of the system, and I don't think we necessarily should -- although for the first time I am thinking public financing of elections may not be a crazy notion."

Calls for reform are being made less than a month after the Asbury Park Press and the six other Gannett New Jersey newspapers reported on ways that many lawmakers used their public office to help themselves and their families and friends to government jobs and contracts.

The series, "Profiting from Public Service," found one-third of lawmakers hold at least one other public job, a quarter of all legislative spouses also hold publicly funded jobs, and one in five lawmakers put a relative on their payroll in the past two years.

The top issue for Green Party candidates is "clean money" campaign reform, according to Orr.

"We want to get private money out of elections," Orr said. "Big business runs New Jersey. . . . If there is a conflict between business and citizens -- wealthy donors and working people -- whoever has more money to spend is going to be served by our Assembly and Senate."

Orr charged that pay to play, the practice of making campaign contributions in exchange for profitable contracts, is how business is done in Trenton.

"Unless private money comes out of the elections, there isn't going to be any kind of real reform," he said. "If there is a bill passed, it is going to have loopholes big enough to drive a truck through, and it will be business as usual."

Flynn agreed that there is too much private money involved in politics.

"The amount of fund-raising by the incumbents in obscene," Flynn said. "If we don't get ethics straightened out, then no other issue is going to be dealt with properly."

Lyden said the call for reform "is about 100 years too late." He said he supports banning the practice of pay-to-play on the county, state and municipal levels and called for posting lawmakers' financial disclosure information on the Internet so it can be easily accessible.

A centerpiece of Lyden's campaign is his call for a "war on drugs like we have never seen."

Nepotism criticized

The candidates also supported an end to nepotism but said reform should not prevent a qualified person from getting a job.

"I think it is wrong to hire your mother, daughter or son," Kyr-illos said. "But we also need to be careful not to hurt people who want an opportunity to serve. If a relative is educated, competent and qualified, you can't say, 'You can't have a public-sector role.' "

Flynn said he favors banning the practice of appointing fami-ly members to public-sector jobs.

"It is a trade-off, and if some-thing has to suffer it has got to be the family," Flynn said. "Pub-lic confidence is the most im-portant thing."

Orr and Lyden both said they are against appointing family members to jobs but would not oppose allowing people to apply for public-sector jobs.

The candidates also agreed to end holding multiple public of-fices and the practice of grant-ing no-bid contracts for govern-ment jobs.

"I don't know why anyone would want to hold two jobs anyway," Kyrillos said. "There are more people who would like to serve."

Although Lyden is running for two offices -- he is also on the ballot for a seat on the Middle-town Township Committee -- he said "one job is enough."

Flynn called for a strong inde-pendent ethics commission and said the penalty for violations should include forfeiture of of-fice.

Reforms top priority

All candidates pledged to make reform their first concern after the election.

"After they showed me where the restrooms were and the of-fice," Lyden said, he would be-gin working toward reform.

"It would be the No. 1 issue," said Flynn, who called for a convention of private citizens to begin considering different reform measures.

Orr and Kyrillos agreed reform would be the first concern.

"This is priority one," Kyrillos said. "We have a lot of problems out there that need to be ad-dressed, but let's get this on track."