Horrific tragedy exploited by two of New Jersey’s career politicians

There is a sickening predictability to the ritual performance of the career politician.

Faced with a horrific tragedy—the torture and murder of nine-year-old Maya Thomas by two of the very adults sworn to protect her—New Jersey State Senators John Burzichelli and Paul Moriarty rushed to microphones not to reckon with institutional failure, but to posture as reformers.

In a joint statement dripping with feigned anguish, the senators lamented New Jersey’s lax homeschooling laws, pointing to the chilling observation that the child was pulled from school so no one would see the bruises.

They spoke of gaps in oversight, of learning from tragedy, and of the urgent need for “meaningful steps.”

It is a fine sentiment, save for one catastrophic detail: John Burzichelli and Paul Moriarty are not fresh-faced outsiders arriving in Trenton to sound the alarm on a neglected crisis. They are legislative fixtures. Between them, they boast more than 55 years in elected office.

Burzichelli has spent over three and a half decades pulling levers of power in New Jersey, including two decades in the General Assembly and fifteen years as mayor of Paulsboro—Maya Thomas’s own backyard.

Moriarty has logged more than two decades in public office, including eighteen years in the Assembly. For generations, these two men have sat at the pinnacle of New Jersey governance. They have held the committee seats, authored the bills, and presided over the state budget.

Yet now, suddenly vaulted into the Senate after decades of legislative dominance, they have discovered that New Jersey is “one of only 13 states that require no filing, registration, subject requirements, instructional hour requirements, or contact.”

One is forced to ask: Where were they for the last fifty-five cumulative years?

Did the legal vacuum surrounding homeschooling materialize yesterday? Did the statutory blind spots magically appear in January 2024? Or were these career politicians entirely content to ignore the shadows until a murdered child forced the issue into the headlines, turning a horrific systemic failure into a convenient PR opportunity?

It is the ultimate political sleight-of-hand: complaining about the weather after spending half a century refusing to build a roof. To use the death of a tortured nine-year-old girl to lament a lack of public policy—while hiding the inconvenient fact that you are the public policy establishment—is a masterclass in cynical deflection.

If New Jersey’s oversight is dangerously weak, it is because lawmakers like Burzichelli and Moriarty spent decades looking away, prioritizing political comfort over child welfare.

In January, the pay hike they supported kicked in, so while many of their constituentts are grappling with the cost of living, their $49,000 salaries got bumped up to $82,000, so they can comfortably publish press releases about unresolved crises like tortured and murdered nine-year-olds or work on fundraising for the next election.

Offering thoughts and prayers wrapped in legislative self-pity after fifty-five years of collective inaction isn’t leadership. It is an indictment.