After the Vietnamese town of Ben Tre was bombed flat in 1968, an American army officer supposedly said, “It became necessary to destroy the village in order to save it.”
Last week, Sen. Raymond Lesniak, claiming to defend the independence of the New Jersey Supreme Court, suggested that the Democratic majority in the state Senate refuse to confirm Associate Justice Helen Hoens, a Republican, if the governor nominates her for tenure when her term ends in December. The threat appears to hold Hoens’ reappointment hostage for the reappointment of Chief Justice Stuart Rabner. Whatever it is intended to accomplish, it will not restore the post-1947 consensus, in which our Supreme Court’s justices ranged from moderately conservative to liberal, and reappointment at the end of the seven-year probationary term was so routine that they enjoyed de facto tenure during good behavior. Instead, Lesniak’s approach would level the ground on which the court has stood as a bastion of independence and integrity.
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