8 December 2022: NJ Lawmakers Won't Probe Murphy's COVID Policies Anytime Soon

N.J. lawmakers won’t launch their own probe into COVID, at least not now, top Dem says

Instead of taking what we argued is the next logical step of probing what happened in New Jersey's nursing homes during the coronavirus pandemic after NJ Governor Phil Murphy's de facto admission of his leadership failure, the majority Democrats in the state legislature are circling their wagons to protect the interests of NJ Governor Phil Murphy by choosing to continue kicking that can down the road. The excerpt below from NJ.com tells the story of their political complicity after the fact of the scandal:

While Gov. Phil Murphy last week announced a long-awaited outside review into how New Jersey responded to COVID-19 under his leadership, Republican lawmakers have continued to call for a separate legislative probe, complete with subpoena power.

But New Jersey’s top state lawmaker said there aren’t plans for the Democratic-controlled state Legislature to launch one, at least not immediately.

“It’s not gonna happen now,” state Senate President Nicholas Scutari, D-Union, told NJ Advance Media on Monday at the Statehouse in Trenton. “Might it happen in the future? Sure. I think it’s possible.”

Scutari, the leader of the Legislature’s upper house, noted how Murphy, a fellow Democrat, just announced the review and said legislative leaders will wait until it’s over — possibly a year from now — before evaluating the situation.

“I’m not gonna reinvent the wheel,” Scutari said. “Let them do that first. They’re gonna spend a lot of money on it, I’m sure. Let’s see what they say, and if we’re not satisfied with that, then sure, it’s an open possibility.”

There is a very recent precedent the state legislature could follow instead of this approach, based on how the legislature probed the role of former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and several of his top aides in the so-called "Bridgegate" scandal. That they're not is how to tell what they're choosing to not do is more about protecting the state Democratic party's interests rather than doing what's best for New Jersey's nursing home residents:

Multiple Republican lawmakers have said they want the Legislature to hold a parallel investigation into COVID-19 similar to the one held during Bridgegate. They note it would have subpoena power to force the release of documents that Murphy’s administration has not made public during the pandemic.

They also say they want to make sure there is a thorough look at longterm care deaths, as well as Murphy’s business and school closings.

The legislature's probe of the Bridgegate scandal cost $1.1 million. That would be 0.002% of the $50.6 billion the state legislature approved for the state government's 2022-2023 fiscal year, which is how to tell the cost of such a probe is not a real issue.

Waiting another year for Governor Murphy's own report, where he has a strong motive to absolve himself of any wrongdoing, doesn't make sense.