NJ GOV. CHRISTIE NOMINATES HATEMONGER POSING AS A CONSERVATIVE TO SUPERIOR COURT

When we started this thing of ours called One People’s Project, DLJ wrote a column for the Bridgewater (NJ) Courier-News in the aftermath of the “One People’s Rally” which was in opposition to Dick Barrett’s rally in Morristown, NJ. In it he wrote: “What difference does it make if we ignore Barrett when we have people like Assemblyman Michael Patrick Carroll taking Barrett’s issues to the Assembly floor in the form of some sort of legislation?” Now if we are calling someone out from Day 1, you KNOW he has to be bad news. Ironically DLJ wrote just last year on our 10th anniversary that while Carroll is still an Assemblyperson “he’s pretty much harmless in today’s climate.” So much for that idea. Turns out New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has a budget he is trying to get through the Democratic-controlled legislature, but a few Republicans are also holding it up. One of them is Assemblyman Carroll. Meanwhile a NJ Superior Court Judge retired a month ago and Christie needs to fill that seat. Guess who Christie is giving the nod to? That’s right, Michael Patrick Carroll, a guy who thinks black people should be thankful for slavery, that no leftist or anyone supporting a woman’s reproductive rights should be allowed to serve on the bench like he might, or that gay people should not be protected from scumbags harassing them. How ironic it is that Carroll has shown himself to be more of a concern should he end up on the bench. Folks in NJ might have to inquire about this one, and fast. Because if we don’t, we might find some rather curious and dangerous rulings coming out of New Jersey courts.

One People’s Project

TRENTON, NJ–New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie announced on May 4. that he intends to nominate to the state’s superior court a staunch and outspoken right-wing member of the state Assembly who has recently taken controversial and outright racist and homophobic stances on the issues of abortion, gay rights and slavery.

Michael Patrick Carroll, who has served the 25th District in New Jersey’s Assembly since 1995, was offered the job by Gov. Christie last week to replace Judge Frederick De Vesa who retired Feb. 1 after serving 15 years on the bench. As one of the last Republican holdouts on Gov. Christie’s budget, Carroll had to defend the possible appointment as merely a way to get him out of the way. “I’ve known the governor for 30 years,” Carroll said. “He knows my strengths and my weaknesses, and I’m very proud he’s nominated me to be a judge. This has not the slightest bit to do with the budget.”

However among his weaknesses might be his positions on issues that question how impartial and unbiased he would be as a judge. An attorney living in Morristown, NJ, Carroll began his foray into politics with the 1972 re-election campaign of President Richard Nixon. Since becoming a member of the Assembly he has gained a reputation of being the most conservative in the legislative body, spurred on by such efforts like attempting to rename the town of Clinton, NJ to Reagan, NJ in 1999. He is also a member of the conservative Federalist Society, which recently saw controversy when they invited white nationalist Peter Brimelow as a keynote speaker at a Texas conference. He also participated in the rally at the Lincoln Memorial last year on the anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” Speech organized by conservative television host Glenn Beck.

Carroll has maintained a blog since 2005 where he has articulates some of his more divisive opinions. In 2007 for example, he suggested that leftists should not be allowed to serve as judges. “They simply can’t fathom that there might be a difference between ‘doing that which (they believe) to be right’ and doing that which the Constitution compels,” he wrote. Ironically in 2005, he defended the Patriot Act from detractors who said that was unconsitiutional. : “If so-called ‘privacy advocates’ were serious, they’d be much more offended by the huge intrusion into individual privacy required by the income tax than by the insignificant — and wholly hypothetical — encroachment involved in governmental discovery of the occasional reading list,” he wrote.

Still on the theme of deciding who is fit to serve as a judge, Carroll had another opinion in 2005 that went along his hard stance against abortion: “No judge who could attach his/her name to the opinion in Roe is qualified to sit on any court.” Carroll’s anti-choice positions have made him a regular supporter of NJ Right to Life, a group that in the 90s refused to accept a platform of non-violence and whose conferences included speakers such as prominent anti-Semitic writer Joseph Sobran. Two months ago, Carroll defended Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorium who questioned President Barack Obama’s support for abortion rights when he said it is “almost remarkable for a black man to say ‘now we are going to decide who are people and who are not people.’” While suggesting parallels between those who work to abolish slavery and the anti-choice activists of today, Carroll concurred with Santorium. “Recent statistics show that in New York, there are half as many abortions among blacks as there are live births,” he wrote. “For a racist, this would be cause to celebrate: that many fewer folks to hate. Indeed, racists love the fact that blacks are hugely more likely to undergo abortions than are whites.” Ironically, just a few weeks later when he opposed a proposed increase in funding for Charity Care which helps the poor with medical bills, he was quoted as saying, “You crank out a kid and you can’t afford it, that’s your problem.”

Carroll’s concern for how racists would feel about abortion is ironic given his own remarks that come up from time to time involving race and ethnicity. He has called for the elimination of Black Studies and Gender Studies in colleges, and rails often against efforts to promote diversity in today’s society, He also took aim at the victims of Hurricane Katrina, blaming them for their situation. “Perhaps the huge expense associated with the Katrina rebuilding effort constitutes a good time to raise the issue of personal responsibility,” he wrote. But one of his biggest controversies was in 2008 around his comments regarding slavery and New Jersey being the first Northern state to formally express regret for its role in the transatlantic slave trade. The legislature voted in favor of the resolution that year, the 200th anniversary of the US abolishing the trade, but Carroll voted against it, writing later, “If slavery was the price that a modern American’s ancestors had to pay in order to make one an American, one should get down on one’s knees every single day and thank the Lord that such price was paid.” In a debate over the issue on NPR, fellow assemblyman William Payne characterized his remarks as “grotesque”.

Carroll is also a staunch opponent of the homosexual community in the efforts to beat back the second class citizenship status in the United States. Not only has that meant opposing same sex marriages and gays serving in the military, In November, Carroll also took issue with an anti-bullying bill following the suicide of Rutgers University student Tyler Clementi, who leapt to his death off the George Washington Bridge after his roommate allegedly distributed images of Clementi being intimate with another man in their dorm room. Although the bill was sponsored and approved by both chambers in the Statehouse and b
etween the two houses, Carroll was the only dissenting vote. Carroll said his opposition to the bill was due to it only covering bullying in specific discrimination cases, particularly ethnic, racial and sexual discrimination. “If you are harassed based on being bookish or nerdish you are not covered,” he said. However, Carroll expanded his thoughts on the bill in an interview for the Philadelphia Gay News however. “This bill defines bullying as akin to a biased crime,” he said. “It says that bullying consists of doing things to people who happen to have a particular status, instead of saying all victims are created equal. I was bullied when I was a child, and I’m not gay or disabled or black — the bully just thought I was a weakling — so why shouldn’t I have been treated equally under this law?”

Gov. Christie intends to make the nomination official on Thursday, and it will take a Senate vote to finally approve Carroll for a seven-year term. If he is indeed approved, he can serve as many terms he is appointed to until the mandatory retirement age of 70. Although there has not been a statement from any person or group opposed to the possibility of Carroll becoming a judge, there is a Facebook page against Carroll that has been in existance for several months called NJ District 25 Against Michael Patrick Carroll.

Carroll’s voting record