The New Jersey State Supreme Court is what broke New Jersey-Malanga

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Winter 2012, "The Court That Broke Jersey," City Journal, Steve Malanga

"The state’s activist judiciary has forced taxpayers to finance unprecedented educational and housing regimes."

"But he (Governor Christie) has only begun to grapple with an institution that bears much of the responsibility for the state’s fiscal woes: the New Jersey Supreme Court.

For half a century now, New Jersey has been home to the most activist state appellate court in America. Lauded by proponents of “living” constitutions who urge courts to make policy instead of interpret the law as written, the New Jersey Supreme Court has profoundly transformed the Garden State by seizing control of school funding, hijacking zoning powers from towns and cities to increase subsidized housing, and nullifying taxpayer protections in the state constitution. Its undemocratic actions have blown apart the state’s finances and led to ill-conceived and ineffective policies. If you want to understand what rule by liberal judges looks like on the state level, you need only look at New Jersey,

• which is teetering on bankruptcy though it remains one of America’s wealthiest states.

In January, Christie nominated two new members to the court, appointments that have the capacity to reshape the seven-member panel. But taming the court won’t be easy, even for the pugnacious Christie, whose initial efforts to reform it met ferocious resistance. “I don’t think the supreme court has any business being involved in setting the budget of the state government,” Christie complained last year. Yet it is involved, extensively—and that must change if Jersey taxpayers are ever to find relief."...via Instapundit

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