If all goes well for the “little people” in the state of NJ there might be a lot of fear in D.C.
NJ Tea Parties United and the Sussex County Tea Party are seeking to force Senator (Robert Menendez) removal because of his support of health-care reform and past votes to increase government spending.
The New Jersey Secretary of State, Nina Mitchell Wells, denied the request last fall to begin a petition to remove the Senator, however a court ruling didn’t agree with her decision:
After the notice is approved, the committee then must secure the signatures of 25 percent of registered voters of the affected district before a recall election can be held. There were 5.2 million registered voters in November, meaning the committee would have to secure 1.3 million signatures.
Menendez’s lawyer had argued that voters do not have the right to recall a U.S. senator under federal law.
I love it. They actually think that “We The People” can hire them for their job but “We The People” can not fire them before an election. The arrogance among the politicians is amazing. I can’t find a recent polling of the Senator but several people are commenting on New Jersey newspaper blogs that his approval rating is anywhere from 29%-47%. I doubt they will get the required 1.3 million signatures. But it is obvious the Secretary of State was a bit nervous about it. The NJ Constitution does indeed say that “We The People” of NJ have every right to recall our representatives.
Hat Tip: Kristi
Val-
All I can say is that the Founding Fathers would disagree. In fact, they didn’t even trust the people to elect Senators for this sort of reasoning.
Dan –
Please provide non biased sources to back up your claim.
When you say “They” are you grouping every single last founding father in that “they” are just a few?
If my memory serves, what the founding fathers would disagree with is career politicians. Isn’t that way Washington refused to serve a third term?
Oh….I understand what you are talking about……
With Senators not being popularly elected until….what was….1910 or something? Actually, if you think about it….we should go back to the old way……
Anywho…I still stand by my article. The NJ constitution says if the people elect someone then they can remove them. I can’t think of one state that doesn’t have some way of unelecting our officials. Which our founding fathers would have loved considering they didn’t particularly like government to begin with!