Soft Corruption


Book Description

New Jersey has long been a breeding ground for political corruption, and most of it is perfectly legal. Public officials accept favors from lobbyists, give paid positions to relatives, and rig the electoral process to favor their cronies in a system where campaign money is used to buy government results. Such unethical behavior is known as “soft corruption,” and former New Jersey legislator William E. Schluter has been fighting it for the past fifty years. In this searing personal narrative, the former state senator recounts his fight to expose and reform these acts of government misconduct. Not afraid to cite specific cases of soft corruption in New Jersey politics, he paints a vivid portrait of public servants who care more about political power and personal gain than the public good. By recounting events that he witnessed firsthand in the Garden State, he provides dramatic illustrations of ills that afflict American politics nationwide. As he identifies five main forms of soft corruption, Schluter diagnoses the state government’s ethical malaise, and offers concrete policy suggestions for how it might be cured. Not simply a dive through the muck of New Jersey politics, Soft Corruption is an important first step to reforming our nation’s political system, a book that will inspire readers to demand that our elected officials can and must do better. Visit: www.softcorruption.com (http://www.softcorruption.com)




New Jersey Politics and Government


Book Description

This fourth edition is thoroughly updated to reflect the challenges New Jersey has overcome and those it continues to face: sustaining growth and opportunity in a multicultural society, providing quality education, and protecting the environment. State politics and government have been almost entirely reshaped in recent decades, and those changes are analyzed in every chapter of this edition. Offering a comprehensive overview of New Jersey politics and government, chapters cover the state’s political history; campaigns and elections; interest groups; the constitution; the development of government institutions; relationships with neighboring states, the federal government, and its own municipalities and counties; tax and spending policies; education; and quality of life issues.




New Jersey Encyclopedia


Book Description

NEW JERSEY ENCYCLOPEDIA is the definitive reference work on New Jersey ever published. The noted New Jersey historian Chad E. Leinaweaver, Director of the Library and Museum Collection for the New Jersey Historical Society, has written articles on Introduction to New Jersey History, Early History of New Jersey, and New Jersey History. These articles cover the history of New Jersey, from the early explorers to twenty-first century events. Other major sections in this reference work are New Jersey Symbols and Designations, Geography and Topography of New Jersey, Profiles of New Jersey Governors, Chronology of New Jersey Historic Events, Dictionary of New Jersey Places, New Jersey Constitution, Bibliography of New Jersey Books, Pictorial Scenes of New Jersey, State Executive Offices, State Agencies, Departments and Offices, New Jersey Senators, New Jersey Assembly Members, U.S. Senators and U.S. Congress members from New Jersey, Directory of New Jersey Historic Places and Index.NEW JERSEY ENCYCLOPEDIA contains stunning photographs and portraits to compliment the expertly written text. Population charts are arranged alphabetically by city or town name, and by county. This allows students easy access to find population figures for their area of interest. Other population charts list all places in New Jersey by largest populated places to least populated places by city or county. Directories contain the information on elected state and federal officials along with their contact information including mail and email addresses, phone and fax numbers. Easy to use reference maps are included to find your elected state or federal officials. The Directory of State Services lists the head officials and full contact information on state agencies and departments, some of which were just newly created by the legislature. The Directory of New Jersey Historic Places contains all the latest up to date information on every New Jersey historic place. The Bibliography includes that latest books published on New Jersey. A detailed Index makes the work thoroughly referential. NEW JERSEY ENCYCLCOPEDIA offers librarians, teachers and students a single source reference work that provides the answers to the most frequently asked questions about New Jersey and its history.




A Consumers' Republic


Book Description

In this signal work of history, Bancroft Prize winner and Pulitzer Prize finalist Lizabeth Cohen shows how the pursuit of prosperity after World War II fueled our pervasive consumer mentality and transformed American life. Trumpeted as a means to promote the general welfare, mass consumption quickly outgrew its economic objectives and became synonymous with patriotism, social equality, and the American Dream. Material goods came to embody the promise of America, and the power of consumers to purchase everything from vacuum cleaners to convertibles gave rise to the power of citizens to purchase political influence and effect social change. Yet despite undeniable successes and unprecedented affluence, mass consumption also fostered economic inequality and the fracturing of society along gender, class, and racial lines. In charting the complex legacy of our “Consumers’ Republic” Lizabeth Cohen has written a bold, encompassing, and profoundly influential book.




Spotlight on New Jersey Government


Book Description

Includes the state Constitution and a look at the government and its work.




The Feminist Political Campaign for Eugenic Legislation in New Jersey, 1910-1942


Book Description

As this book shows, between 1910 and 1942, social feminists in New Jersey waged an unsuccessful campaign for legislation that would permit eugenic sterilization of ‘feebleminded’ and other ‘undesirable’ citizens. Church archives and religious periodicals described the conflict between Catholic and Protestant citizens regarding this issue. Reform-minded women persisted in their quest for such progressive state legislation despite repeated failures. Their number of potential voters was very small compared to the organized bloc of Catholic citizens who viewed such legislation as immoral and based on bad science, and threatened to unseat any legislator who supported such a notion. This insightful text highlights that public officials would only enact such laws when they were convinced that many citizens supported a particular eugenic goal and then would vote for legislators who satisfied this moral challenge. Public opinion was unprepared for such radical legislation in New Jersey, and legislators learned that to even consider a eugenic sterilization notion would be political suicide.







The Pig Book


Book Description

The federal government wastes your tax dollars worse than a drunken sailor on shore leave. The 1984 Grace Commission uncovered that the Department of Defense spent $640 for a toilet seat and $436 for a hammer. Twenty years later things weren't much better. In 2004, Congress spent a record-breaking $22.9 billion dollars of your money on 10,656 of their pork-barrel projects. The war on terror has a lot to do with the record $413 billion in deficit spending, but it's also the result of pork over the last 18 years the likes of: - $50 million for an indoor rain forest in Iowa - $102 million to study screwworms which were long ago eradicated from American soil - $273,000 to combat goth culture in Missouri - $2.2 million to renovate the North Pole (Lucky for Santa!) - $50,000 for a tattoo removal program in California - $1 million for ornamental fish research Funny in some instances and jaw-droppingly stupid and wasteful in others, The Pig Book proves one thing about Capitol Hill: pork is king!




Intergovernmental Perspective


Book Description

Each issue concentrates on a different topic.




Encyclopedia of New Jersey


Book Description

Everything you've ever wanted to know about the Garden State can now be found in one place. This encyclopaedia contains a wealth of information from New Jersey's prehistory to the present covering architecture, arts, biographies, commerce, arts, municipalities and much more.