Forty "regular citizens" run for office in NJ
Thursday, October 1st, 2009
By: Phil Gregory
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Forty people running for the New Jersey Assembly gathered on the steps of the Statehouse Wednesday and announced a campaign to return the legislature to "regular citizens."
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Two of the candidates are independents, the other 38 are Republicans. Most of them are seeking political office for the first time. They call themselves "citizens running for office."
Barry Funt is the organizer of Citizens for Assembly and admits they have far less campaign funds than incumbent Democratic candidates.
Funt: I do believe we are in the midst of a nationwide citizens movement and if we are lucky in attaching that to make people think about that here then hopefully we'll have a lot of surprises.
Those candidates are calling for tax reform, tough anti-corruption laws and voter approval for future state borrowing. A spokesman for the majority Assembly Democrats says many of those proposals have already been enacted.