TRENTON, NJ – As New Jersey Governor Murphy shut down businesses, canceled holidays, forced children to wear face masks in school and mandated vaccines, New Jersey’s Democrats sat idly by, allowing the governor’s reign of terror to continue.
Today, after facing sweeping victories for the first time in decades in New Jersey, Republicans have the political momentum despite losing the governor’s race to Phil Murphy, as is a probability at this time.
“The earthquake the rattled the Legislature yesterday reflected the public’s lack of confidence after a year and a half of pandemic mandates,” said New Jersey Senator Joe Pennachio. ““The Democrat Legislature sat on the sidelines during one of the most important, neediest times in our state history. Instead of engaging and representing constituents, legislators circled their wagons and defended a governor instead of protecting the people against his arbitrary rules and edicts.”
One of the biggest defeats for Democrats was the victory by a truck driver with a campaign fund of about $200 defeating the state’s most powerful Democrat, Steve Sweeney.
“New Jersey, despite all the draconian measures the Governor enacted, still had the highest per capita death rate in the world. Murphy’s policies forcing nursing homes to accept COVID patients, preventing testing for COVID, and locking the doors contributed to the loss of 10,000 frail and elderly residents of those long-term nursing facilities,” Pennachio added. “As the federal government shoveled billions of dollars in COVID relief to New Jersey, the Administration and its Democrat acolytes sat on their hands while they saw one-third of New Jersey businesses fail.”
Democrats, Pennachio said did nothing to curb Murphy’s quest for total power, in fact, aided and embedded the progressive governor.
“New Jerseyans observed this inaction by the legislature and did not like what they saw. In response last night, the residents refused to reward many of those silent Democrats with another tenure in office,” he added. “The Legislature should spend the remaining portion of the current legislative session on a full and thorough investigation of the Administration’s COVID pandemic policies and the devastating effects they had, and continue to have, on the citizens of New Jersey.”
Now, Pennachio, who has been ignored by the Murphy administration is once again calling for an oversight committee to investigate conditions within New Jersey’s long term care facilities that led to the bulk of COVID-19 deaths during the pandemic.
“I am once again calling for the immediate formation of a Senate Oversight Committee with subpoena powers which would parallel the current investigation being conducted by the Department of Justice against the COVID nursing home actions of this Administration,” he added. ““Those 10,000 silent screams in nursing homes deserve no less.”