12th District Republican candidates Jennifer Beck, Declan O’Scanlon and Caroline Casagrande today called for the 11 public officials indicted on federal charges by U.S. Attorney Chris Christie to resign immediately from their offices, saying that despite a presumption of innocence they would not be able to do their jobs effectively with a cloud of suspicion hanging over their heads.

“Unfortunately calling for indicted officials to resign is becoming a frequent occurrence, but it must be done”, said Casagrande. “Leaving these public officials in office to make important decisions with taxpayer dollars while their ethics are in question is unacceptable. The have to step down- now.”

Beck said a series of watered down ethics bills was partially responsible for the culture of corruption in Trenton.

 “In the last 6 months, we’ve passed a law that says legislators can hold two elected positions and collect two pensions, even if the two elected positions are in inherent conflict of interest. We’ve passed a law that says anyone convicted of public corruption automatically forfeits only one pension, not all public pensions, leaving the possibility that people in jail could be collecting taxpayer funds.  And when Assemblyman Baroni and I suggested that indicted legislators should temporarily step down from their positions, we were mocked by Democrat leaders. It’s clear that these supposed ethics reforms are not working as a deterrent and we need to go further. 

O’Scanlon concluded by saying “Today is another sad chapter in the sordid tale of New Jersey politics over the last six years. We now have 4 members of the New Jersey Legislature under indictment and a fifth under criminal federal investigation.  Two days ago Ellen Karcher, Mike Panter and their Democrat bosses in Trenton  were saying that we’re making progress on ethics reform, when as recently as three weeks ago two sitting legislators were confidently accepting bribes. The truth is, their inability to enact true ethics reform has led to the culture of corruption in the Statehouse which continues to this day.

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