By Charles Stile, NorthJersey.com
On Wednesday, state Superior Court Judge Peter E. Warshaw Jr. tossed out the entire indictment against South Jersey Democratic party boss George Norcross and several allies. It was a slam-dunk rejection to state Attorney General Matt Platkin’s sweeping case, which Democratic Party activists and progressives had hoped would serve as the long-sought breakthrough, a building block for lasting reform.
Platkin’s response to ruling:
“After years in which the U.S. Supreme Court has consistently cut back on federal public corruption law, and at a time in which the federal government is refusing to tackle corruption, it has never been more important for state officials to take corruption head on. But I have never promised that these cases would be easy, because too many have come to view corruption as simply the way the powerful do business in New Jersey.”
Now the unsettling question for the progressive activists who challenged the Democratic machine in Camden, Norcross’s base of political and community operations, and for the neighborhood residents who fought for redress and recognition in the shadow of office buildings rising along the Delaware River, is this: Will New Jersey’s corroded system ever change?
Certainly, lawmakers who owe their very careers to the boss-dominated system can’t be counted on to dismantle it.
And if not the courts, then who?
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