Every District Got Pinned. LD24 Got Nailed

Sometimes a picture really is worth a thousand words.

And this picture comes from an interesting source.

A REPUBLICAN’S MAP OF WHERE THE MONEY WENT

Assemblyman Rob Clifton, a Republican representing Legislative District 12, recently shared a map illustrating where discretionary spending earmarks in New Jersey’s FY2027 budget and supplemental appropriations are going according to legislative each district.

The concept is remarkably simple:

Put a pin on the district map where the money is going.

And there was plenty of money to track.

New Jersey’s FY2027 budget appropriates approximately $60.74 billion in state funds. On top of that, more than $200 million in legislative additions and another $358.8 million in supplemental FY2026 spending became part of the larger budget debate.

Pins appear all across New Jersey.

Then look at Legislative District 24.

LD24 is comprised of Sussex County and portions of Warren and Morris counties.

Not one pin.

NOTHING. NOT ONE DOLLAR FOR LD24!

Republicans inside LD24 noticed it too.

The Republican Club of Roxbury recently reposted Clifton’s map and drew attention to something that should be obvious to every taxpayer in LD24:

“Take a close look at this map. What do you notice about our Legislative District 24? We don’t have any pins.”

And Roxbury is not some Democratic stronghold taking a partisan shot at Republican legislators.

Roxbury is part of LD24.

Its residents are represented by Senator Parker Space, Assemblywoman Dawn Fantasia and Assemblyman Michael Inganamort.

So, this is not criticism coming from Democrats or some political opponents.

Republicans within the district are looking at their own Republican representatives and asking essentially the same question:

Where the hell is our share?

THERE WAS PLENTY OF MONEY, JUST NOT FOR LD24

There certainly was no shortage of money.

New Jersey’s FY2027 budget appropriates $60,743,569,000 in state funds.

Parker Space himself complained about where some of that money was going.

When Space announced his vote against the budget, he accused Democrats of going “hog wild funneling pork spending into Democrat districts.”

Apparently, Trenton finally took Parker Space seriously. He demanded spending cuts, so they went and completely cut out LD24.

While other legislators were getting money for their districts, where was the LD24 team?

It is easy to complain that other legislators are bringing money home.

The harder question is why the LD24 legislators are not.

WHAT ONE OF THOSE PINS COULD HAVE MEANT FOR LD24

Perhaps “discretionary spending” sounds like another obscure Trenton budget term.

But look at what some of these legislative appropriations could actually pay for.

The FY2027 budget includes legislatively added funding for organizations and programs serving children and families, seniors, people with disabilities, food-assistance programs, municipalities and community organizations, among many other purposes.

For example, legislators secured additional appropriations for the New Jersey Association of Centers for Independent Living, which serves people with disabilities; the Larc Norcross School Special Needs Adult Program; Glassboro Child Development Centers; food-assistance initiatives; family-service organizations; and numerous other local and community programs.

In other words, those pins are not just numbers on a map.

They can represent real services for real people who need them.

So what does the failure shown on the map mean for LD24 in human terms?

Not one appropriation for a senior program.

Not one appropriation for an organization serving people with disabilities.

Not one appropriation for a children’s program.

Not one appropriation for a community organization.

Not one appropriation for a municipal project.

Nothing!

Are we seriously supposed to believe that among the hundreds of thousands of people living throughout Sussex County and the portions of Warren and Morris counties that comprise LD24, there was not one worthy organization, program or project deserving of additional state support?

Of course there was.

We have seniors who need services.

We have children and families who need programs.

We have residents with disabilities and organizations that serve them.

We have food pantries and nonprofits helping struggling families.

We have volunteer fire departments and first-aid squads.

We have municipalities with infrastructure needs.

And we have communities confronting serious utility-reliability problems.

The needs exist.

What appears to be missing is the political ability necessary to get even one of those needs represented in LD24.

And that brings us directly to the person who has represented this area in Trenton for more than a decade.

PARKER SPACE: WHERE IS THE MUSCLE OR THE SKILL?

That question falls most heavily on Senator Parker Space.

He has been in the New Jersey Legislature since 2013. That is more than a decade.

He spent approximately ten years in the Assembly before moving into the Senate.

After that much time in Trenton, a legislator should have relationships. He should understand the budget process. He should know the players. He should know where the pressure points are.

Most importantly, he should have developed some political muscle — and the political skill necessary to use it.

Political influence is not measured by the number of Facebook posts you make.

Nor is it measured by how often you tell voters how terrible Democrats are.

And it is certainly not measured simply by voting “no” after everyone else’s projects have already made it into the budget.

Political influence is measured by results.

And this map raises an uncomfortable question:

How seriously is the LD24 delegation taken in Trenton?

Other legislators apparently figured out how to get projects funded.

LD24 apparently did not.

Perhaps the Democratic majority does not particularly care about nor fear a heavily Republican district. That is certainly possible.

But that is not an excuse for ineffective representation.

That is precisely why we need effective representation in Trenton.

We do not elect a senator to explain why the other side will not give us anything.

We elect one to figure out how to produce results for the people.

AND THEN THERE ARE THE POWER OUTAGES

Space’s apparent lack of influence becomes even harder to understand when we look at one of the biggest problems confronting New Jersey, especially Sussex County: utility reliability.

Sussex County has endured repeated and prolonged power outages for years.

Families have lost food. Businesses have lost revenue. Residents have gone days without electricity. For seniors and people dependent upon electrically powered medical equipment, outages can become considerably more than an inconvenience -- it can become life threatening.

And this is not merely anecdotal anymore.

The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities has initiated proceedings against JCP&L over its failure to meet the state’s minimum reliability standards in 2022, 2023 and 2024, while also reviewing utility responses to the widespread July 2026 storm outages.

And now, JCP&L is maneuvering to increase its service rates again.

And Parker Space is not merely one of 40 senators watching this happen.

He sits on the Senate Environment and Energy Committee.

Even more remarkably, Space previously served on the board of Sussex Rural Electric Cooperative.

Think about that combination.

He represents a district suffering serious utility-reliability problems.

He has firsthand experience with an electric utility.

He sits on the Senate committee dealing with energy policy.

And he has been in the Legislature for more than a decade.

If anyone is positioned to become an advocate for electric reliability in Northwest New Jersey, it should be Parker Space.

So again:

Where are the results?

FACEBOOK RANTS ARE NOT RESULTS

Then we have Assemblywoman Dawn Fantasia.

Anyone following LD24 politics knows that Fantasia certainly is not shy about telling everyone what is wrong with New Jersey.

Her almost daily Facebook tirades routinely feature political commentary and denunciations of Democrats and Trenton.

But taxpayers did not elect a Facebook commentator. They elected an Assembly representative.

There is a difference between generating outrage and generating results.

Apparently, all those Facebook rants are not helping LD24 taxpayers get any funds according to the map.

Being loud is not the same thing as being effective.

INGANAMORT HAS A PROBLEM IN HIS OWN BACKYARD

Assemblyman Michael Inganamort should be paying particularly close attention to this controversy.

Why?

Because Roxbury is in the Morris County portion of the district he represents.

Republicans in one of his own municipalities are publicly circulating the map showing the failure of LD24’s representatives to get a single dollar for the district.

IF YOU CANNOT BRING OUR MONEY BACK, AT LEAST HELP US KEEP IT HERE

If our representatives are unable to bring our tax dollars back from Trenton, you would at least expect them to support efforts aimed at keeping more of those dollars in taxpayers’ pockets in the first place.

And that is where the contradiction becomes difficult to ignore.

Taxpayer advocates have been working with municipalities across New Jersey to challenge the state’s automatic gas-tax escalator and restore something that should not be controversial:

If Trenton wants to increase the gas tax, legislators should have to vote on it.

A municipal resolution drafted by the New Jersey Property Taxpayers Coalition has been circulating, and passing, throughout New Jersey urging the Legislature to repeal the automatic increase mechanism and restore direct legislative accountability for future increases.

After the July outages, the Coalition formally asked the BPU and Division of Rate Counsel for a comprehensive investigation of utility reliability, infrastructure investment, emergency response, staffing and regulatory oversight. The request also called for public hearings and a formal reliability action plan. The Coalition is also circulating a resolution demanding that the Legislature address utility reliability.

These are not abstract partisan exercises.

They are attempts by taxpayers to get Trenton to address problems affecting the people.

Yet despite all their rhetoric about fighting Trenton, where has the LD24 delegation been while taxpayers and municipalities have organized behind these efforts?

Think about the contradiction.

They tell us Trenton takes too much of our money.

They tell us Trenton does not listen to Northwest New Jersey.

They tell us Democrats control the spending and send the money elsewhere.

Then when taxpayers organize and provide an opportunity to push back, there is no support from the LD24 delegation.

You certainly cannot spend years telling voters that you are “fighting for them” and then become an obstacle when taxpayers decide to do some fighting on their own.

And if our representatives cannot do their job, taxpayers are entitled to ask exactly what they are getting from their representatives, especially after they recently gave themselves a 67% pay increase.

IT WAS NOT ALWAYS THIS BAD IN LD24

Before anyone argues the predictable excuse that LD24 is a Republican district operating in a state controlled by Democrats, it is worth remembering something.

For decades, this area was represented by the late Republican Senator Robert E. “Bob” Littell.

Littell represented District 24 in the Legislature for 40 years—first in the Assembly and later in the Senate. He eventually became chairman of the powerful Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee and co-chairman of the Joint Budget Oversight Committee.

But here is the important part.

Littell did not suddenly forget how to represent his district when Republicans lost control of Trenton.

He remained an influential member of the Budget and Appropriations Committee even after Democrats took control of the Senate.

He understood something that seems increasingly lost in today’s politics:

Being in the minority does not relieve you of the responsibility to produce results.

Littell developed relationships. He negotiated. He worked across the aisle. And he understood how to use the legislative process to advance the interests of the people he represented.

That is representation.

And it exposes the weakness of the excuse that Republicans simply cannot accomplish anything because Democrats control Trenton.

Bob Littell dealt with Democratic majorities too. He found a way to make things happen.

Space has now been in the Legislature for more than a decade.

He holds the same Senate seat once occupied by Littell.

So perhaps the problem is not that LD24 is Republican. The problem seems to be who are the Republicans representing LD24.

OPPOSITION IS NOT ACCOMPLISHMENT

There is a larger lesson here.

For years, LD24 voters have heard about everything their Republican legislators oppose.

But eventually voters have to ask another question:

What have you actually accomplished?

There is a fundamental difference between opposition and representation.

Anyone can issue a press release.

Anyone can write a Facebook post.

Anyone can give a speech.

Anyone can vote no.

But representation requires something harder.

It requires negotiating.

It requires building relationships.

It requires persuading people who disagree with you.

It requires knowing when to fight and when to make a deal.

And sometimes it requires walking into a room controlled by the other party and refusing to leave until the people you represent receive their fair share.

That requires political muscle, and political skill.

This map raises a serious question about whether LD24 has either.

BUT DO NOT WORRY. THEY WILL FIND US AT ELECTION TIME

There is one time when the LD24 representatives never seem to have trouble finding their constituents.

Election season.

Then they will know exactly where they are.

They will find Sussex County.

They will find Warren County.

They will find Morris County.

They will appear at fairs and festivals.

They will attend firehouse, VFW and American Legion events and serve food.

They will shake hands.

They will pose for photographs.

They will tell us how hard are fighting for you.

And then they will ask for your votes.

Before giving them those votes, taxpayers should ask to see something first.

The receipts.

What did you bring home?

What did you accomplish?

What did you do about our power outages?

What did you do when taxpayers asked for help fighting automatic gas-tax increases?

What investment did you secure for our communities?

In other words:

Where are “OUR” pins?

Because taxpayers should not be satisfied with just being told that their representatives are “fighting” for them anymore and take their word for it.

Power is measured by results.

Representation is measured by results.

Right now, the map picture tells the sad story of LD24’s reality.

Every district got pinned.

LD24 got nailed.