The entrenched system of home rule in our state is both a blessing and a curse. We simultaneously have the Jeffersonian ideal of hands-on government, with its promise of participatory democracy, and the unwieldy “Wild West” of a system where corruption can escape detection and punishment.

Paula A. Franzese, Peter W. Rodino Professor of Law at Seton Hall Law School and Chair of the State Ethics Commission and Daniel J. O’Hern, retired Associate Justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court, courtesy of the Star-Ledger.