Misdemeanor Murphy: Guv violated his own COVID orders
The semi-fictional “Curb Your Enthusiasm” version of Larry David would have a field day right now with Gov. Phil Murphy. David’s character delights in setting real and perceived slights right, and Murphy would be directly in his crosshairs. Why? Because Murphy marched asses to elbows with protesters on Sunday at two different rallies, fighting the good fight in seeking to end systemic racism in America, and also breaking the law.
Murphy — he of the full state shutdown and slow-as-molasses reopening (which I agree with both, for the record) — broke his own rules. He wasn’t social distancing and he was in a crowd of more than 25 people.
Under Murphy’s executive orders, these are both worthy of police action.
Predictably, Republicans took great delight in pointing out Murphy’s hypocrisy, and Assemblyman Jay Webber took it all the way, demanding in a letter to state police Captain Patrick Callahan that he cite the governor for his law-breaking, which, by the way, would mean a fine of no more than $1,000 and a jail term of no more than six months.
As of the time of this writing, Murphy remains a free man.
When asked, Murphy dodged, saying Monday at his daily coronavirus briefing, saying it’s up to local law enforcement if he should be charged and, “I can’t imagine what it would look like if we said to people, ‘Actually, you have to stay in. You have to ignore systemic racism — I’m sorry, just ignore it. Stay in.’ I can’t imagine what that looks like as it relates to public safety.”
He’s got a point - demanding protesters not protest probably would not have ended with protesters shrugging their shoulders in defeat and heading back home. Plus, there’s the whole “wrong side of history” thing, and threatening protesters with fines and jail certainly would’ve fallen on that side.
But marching with them - in open defiance of his own rules
- is problematic. I’m not saying he shouldn’t have marched; that’s his personal decision. I am, however, saying he should be charged with the crime, he should be issued a summons, and then he let the courts decide what the proper punishment should be.
I’m not joking, either: Murphy’s administration has come down on dozens of businesses that have flouted his executive order, and the leaders of two anti-lockdown protests, according to Politico, have been charged with violating the state’s stay-at-home order.
In fact, a Randolph woman who organized a protest rally against the lockdown was just issued a pair of summons for a May 30 event, according to News 12.
This is textbook “you can’t have your cake and eat it too.” (Or perhaps more on the nose for New Jersey: You can’t close the beaches and then go to the beach yourself.) You can’t demand a lockdown and cite people who flaunt the law and then - no matter how righteous the cause - go out and flaunt it yourself. You can’t say one kind of protest is immune from the law, while another type of protest isn’t.
I’m not a First Amendment scholar but I don’t think you have to be to see the issue here.
Murphy finds himself in a pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty not-so-good situation. By marching, he became a hypocrite. And again, to be perfectly, 100 percent, crystal clear, the marches were right and they were just. Murphy, as governor, should certainly have marched. But just because it’s right, doesn’t make it “right.” By not holding himself accountable for breaking the law, he really is setting a double-standard.
“It’s the only way he can maintain any legitimacy for his executive orders; otherwise, how can he tell any other citizen they need to comply?” said Micah Rasmussen, the director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University. “No one is questioning the righteousness of the cause here, but the law must be even-handed, or it is worth nothing.”
Peacefully protesting racism and peacefully protesting the shutdown are two wildly different protests, but they are both protests nonetheless. If Murphy doesn’t see fit to ask for, and accept a charge against him, I fail to see how anyone else who has been issued a summons for violating his executive orders on social distancing and crowds can be held accountable either.