Demand the Removal of Senate President, Stephen Sweeney and Assembly Speaker, Sheila Oliver From Leadership Positions 

We the undersigned citizens and registered voters of New Jersey demand that Senate President Steve Sweeney and Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver be removed from their leadership positions due to their lack of appreciation and understanding of the principles of participatory democracy, strategic leadership, and the Democratic Party.

WE STATE AND BELIEVE :

1. Sweeney and Oliver betrayed core principles of the Democratic Party by engineering the passage of Governor Christie’s State Pension and Health Benefits Bill, including the destruction of public sector collective bargaining rights.

2. Sweeney and Oliver handed Governor Christie his greatest legislative victory to date, thereby greatly strengthening the Republican Party in New Jersey at the expense of the Democratic Party.

3. Sweeney and Oliver advanced the bill, contrary to the wishes of the majority of the members of Democratic Caucuses of both the Senate and the Assembly.

4. Sweeney and Oliver voted for Christie’s State Pension and Health Benefits Bill, despite the fact that the majority of the members of Democratic Caucuses of both the Senate and the Assembly voted against it.

5. Sweeney and Oliver failed to negotiate anything in exchange for their vote, such as advancing the Democratic Party’s legislative goal of the Millionaires Tax .  Instead, Governor Christie announced before even signing the Pension and Health Benefits Bill that he would veto the Democrat’s Budget and the Millionaires Tax.

6. It is widely believed that Sweeney and Oliver made the deal to enact the State Pension and Health Benefits Bill for the benefit of George Norcross, Joe Divincenzo and Steve Adubato, Sr., and not for the benefit of the People of New Jersey nor for the Democratic Party.  Sweeney and Oliver thus brought disrepute to the Democratic Party as an essentially corrupt organization beholden to political bosses.

7. The majority of the Democratic Caucuses in the Senate and the Assembly that opposed Sweeney and Oliver on the Pension and Health Benefits Bill cannot permit them to remain in their leadership positions.  Leaders who engineer the defeat of their own Party’s principles are political traitors, and cannot continue to stand as the two most powerful elected “leaders” of the Democratic Party in the State of New Jersey.

8. The Democratic Caucuses in the Senate and the Assembly have the power to remove Steve Sweeney from his position as President of the Senate and to remove Sheila Oliver from her position as Assembly Speaker.  They must do so immediately in order to reclaim the Democratic Party’s soul prior to the November Elections .

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