Two-tiered justice in the Garden State: Sherrill suspends her own law to save political pals

In a move that perfectly encapsulates the rot in Trenton, Governor Rebecca “Mikie” Sherrill’s administration has quietly announced that it will suspend enforcement of a data privacy law that her office rushed through the Legislature just ten days ago.

Why the sudden change of heart? Because the “unintended consequences” of the law suddenly became very real for the political class.

The legislation, touted as a consumer protection measure, contained no carve-out for political campaigns.

It threatened to shut down the databases that Democrats and Republicans rely on to manipulate voters to get elected.

According to a senior administration official, the state will simply not enforce the law until the Legislature can “fix defects.”

“The apocalypse is coming,” a political consultant said, according to one political gossip blog, describing the panic when campaigns realized they might lose access to voter files.

Assemblyman Bill Moen, who is a product of the powerful political organization that George Norcross built and introduced the bill on a Sunday night with virtually no public input, now claims a carve-out for political speech is “implied.”

Moen began his career as an intern for the notorious South Jersey Democratic power broker’s brother, Congressman Donald Norcross, before becoming a Camden County Freeholder and then a member of the General Assembly.

The law, which imposes staggering fees of up to $1.5 million and fines of $50,000 per record for selling sensitive data, apparently doesn’t apply when politicians are the ones buying the data.

This is the definition of a two-tiered system of justice: one set of rules for the powerful establishment and another for everyone else.

The Sherrill administration created a crisis by ramming through a poorly written law, and now it’s using executive fiat to protect its own and its party’s political machinery while the rest of us are left to wonder whether our data is actually protected.

“I don’t know how they fix this,” said one lawmaker, speaking to the political gossip blogger on the condition of anonymity. “The governor can’t call the Legislature into an emergency summer session to fix a fuck-up that affects political campaigns. Those optics suck.”

Sherrill’s office and the two major party organizations in the state did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The law, which imposes staggering fees up to $1.5 million and fines of $50,000 per record for selling sensitive data, apparently doesn’t apply when politicians are the ones buying the data .

“This is the definition of a two-tiered system of justice. One set of rules for the powerful establishment, and another for everyone else,” said progressive Democrat Lisa McCormick. “The Sherrill administration created a crisis by ramming through a poorly written law, and now she’s using executive fiat to protect the political machinery while the rest of us are left to wonder if our data is actually protected.”

New Jersey’s reputation as “America’s most corrupt state” didn’t materialize overnight. The state was a national hotspot during the 2009 FBI sting that netted 44 arrests, including mayors, state lawmakers, and religious leaders.

When big banks collapsed the economy in 2008, executives walked away with billions in bonuses while homeowners lost everything, said McCormick.

In 2012, HSBC laundered money for drug cartels—no executives faced prison.

Meanwhile, a single mother caught stealing baby formula gets felony charges and loses her kids,  she said.

“The message is clear: break the law with a suit and a trust fund, it’s a ‘regulatory matter.’ Break it with empty pockets, it’s a crime,” said McCormick. “Americans like Alvin Cole, Eric Garner, Breonna Taylor were unarmed but got killed, with no convictions.”

“Meanwhile, January 6th terrorists that beat police, spread feces in congressional offices, and carried Confederate or Nazi flags got presidential pardons,” said McCormick.

“America doesn’t have one justice system,” said McCormick. “It has two—one for the connected, and one for the rest of us. And they’re not even playing the same sport.”