‘We’re in a lot of trouble’: Former Gov. Tom Kean weighs in on the health of democracy in N.J. and the nation

Tom Kean was elected New Jersey governor in 1981 with the slimmest margin of victory in state history. He was reelected four years later in the most lopsided victory ever. Today, he is widely considered to be New Jersey’s most popular and respected governor of all time.  There are several reasons for this: his intelligence was unassuming, his candor was consistent and non-threatening, and his sense of decency was abiding. He believed in compromise and transparency. 

So, The Jersey Vindicator thought it was a good time to check in with Kean on his assessment of the health of democracy in New Jersey and the country. As a starting point, we were particularly interested in his take on recent developments that have been eroding governmental transparency in the state. 

• Like last month’s legislative overhaul of the state’s Open Public Records Act (OPRA), despite an outpouring of protest that the new law diminished the public’s ability to access government documents. 

• And last year’s controversial reconstruction of the state Election Law Enforcement Commission (ELEC). A new law dramatically raised campaign contribution limits and drastically cut the time frame for the commission to investigate violations. 

In a Zoom interview, Kean explained how those two events are the most recent results of a disturbing downward spiral in New Jersey.  

“In general, I think the state of transparency is getting worse as the years go on, because I think public officials are finding different ways in order to be less transparent,” he said. “And there’s a whole bunch of reasons for that.”  

Kean then proceeded to break it all down in detail how New Jersey, and America for that matter, has lost its way in a post-press world of unbending partisan hostility fed by huge sums of dark money and misinformation. All of this has made him “worry about democracy in the future.”

At one point, he was asked point-blank, “How much trouble are we in as a democracy?”

Without pausing, he replied: 

“We’re in a lot of trouble.”