By Matthew Hale
One theme in the Toy Story movies is that we forget what we loved about old toys when we turn to shiny new ones.
On Good Friday, a federal judge issued an injunction against New Jersey’s infamous county line. If that decision holds up on appeal, one by-product will be that New Jersey’s political parties will also change, perhaps radically. While that will bring cheers in some circles, it is not without consequences.
New Jersey’s political parties are like Toy Story’s Green Army Men, (which is apt since they are mainly run by men). They are a steady, collective group of people each doing a small part to reach a common objective.
Washington and perhaps what comes next in New Jersey is like Buzz Lightyear: a loud and flashy rocket prone to pontificating while blasting off from the left to the right.
New Jersey politics is “special,” and not just because of how our ballots are constructed. We are special because our political parties remain powerful and effective in ways that used to be common everywhere. They are flawed, often rigid, and maybe even undemocratic. For example, parties don’t want “more” people to vote, they only want “their” people to vote. But even so, they help make our state and local governments work in ways our federal government doesn’t.
In theory, political party organizations serve three legitimate and important functions.
The first is signaling voters. That can probably be done without the county line.
The second is managing retail politics. And third is moderating extremes. Those will be more difficult to maintain without the line.
Placing all “party-approved” candidates into one county line is an extremely powerful signaling mechanism. Voters who know next to nothing about individual candidates can easily tell who the “good” Democrats or Republicans are, since they are all in the same voting column. But other states (like New York) only allow people with formal party endorsements to use the line wherever they appear on the ballot. It is a little more difficult for those voters to get the signal, but it isn’t impossible.
Retail politics is the nuts-and-bolts field work of political campaigns. It is things like running phone banks, getting vote-by-mail ballots in and out, and knocking on doors. In New Jersey, the county parties play a central role in running these retail operations because they are doing it for an entire slate of county line candidates. In addition, parties have county committee members elected at the neighborhood level. They know what Mrs. Mitnick over on 8th Ave. thinks and wants from her party and government. That helps.
The death of the line may not kill this kind of ultra-local retail campaigning in New Jersey. But in most states, with weaker parties, individual campaigns run their own retail field operations and they often find that paid advertising is more effective than retail campaigning for just one candidate. The fact that New Jersey doesn’t have its own media market and is sandwiched between two really expensive ones, may mean retail campaigning as a party function will still have life in a New Jersey without the line. But we will have to wait and see.
The last purported benefit of political parties is that they provide a moderating influence on who gets to run and who gets to govern.
Jonathan Rauch of the Brookings Institution calls parties a place for the “professionals.” Rauch and others argue that governing requires a willingness to cut deals, compromise and engage in the transactional business of governing. It is the professional politicians and party operatives that are the repeat players who develop relationships and use them to move the ball forward a little bit at a time. Parties and the people in them are not about massive systemic change, but incremental progress. The county line was a breeding ground for moderation because it rewarded long-term service to the party.
At a minimum it seems likely that without the line and with weakened parties, we will see the rise of what Rauch calls “amateurs.”
For his amateurs, ideas, ideals and ideology are what matter. In fact, to amateurs, anything short of issue or ideological perfection is defeat and failure. The US Congress is a living example of this today. Nothing is getting done, at least in part because there is no entity – such as a political party -- that can compel ideologues and amateurs like Marjorie Taylor Greene or Rashida Tlaib to fall in line with compromises with the other side.
In New Jersey, our strong parties and the county line mean that our government can get things done when it wants to. Clearly it is possible to argue that what our government wants to do is protect itself and special interests, or that all they want to do is to get and spend as much of your tax dollars as possible. Whatever critique of the outcomes you want to offer, you can.
But you cannot argue that New Jersey governments are gridlocked by ideologically pure partisans. That is because our political parties breed moderates and incrementalists.
So we should remember that Buzz Lightyear only won when the Green Army Men were allowed to do their job. Hopefully we will remember that, when we move to the infinity and beyond of New Jersey politics without the county line.
Matthew Hale, PhD is a political science professor at Seton Hall University and a councilman from Highland Park who has only ever run on the Middlesex County line.
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