New Jersey Hall of Fame, etc.

New Jersey's Hall of Fame, Seriously

The New Jersey Hall of Fame may sound like a punchline, but it is, in fact, a living institution, enacted by the state legislature in 2005, with a fact-filled website (njhalloffame.com) and, as of last week, 15 freshman inductees.

As readers might have guessed, THE SCRAPBOOK has a soft spot for the Garden State--and not just because we've traversed the Turnpike or flown in and out of Newark. The Pine Barrens are one of America's natural wonders, George Washington surprised the hungover Hessians at Trenton, and we always enjoyed Johnny Carson's jokes about Ed McMahon's shore house at Avalon. Two of our colleagues, and one recent colleague, hail from New Jersey.

So, THE SCRAPBOOK wondered, who has the state of New Jersey chosen to honor among its roll of immortals? From the initial list, it's evident that the definition of a New Jerseyite is suitably relaxed. For example, Albert Einstein, who was born in Germany and spent most of his life there, is in the New Jersey Hall of Fame, as is Vince Lombardi, a Brooklynite who briefly coached high school football in Englewood. It's also clear that inductees have been heavily recruited from the present day: Of the 15 honorees, a grand total of three spent the bulk of their lives in the 19th century (Clara Barton, Thomas Edison, Harriet Tubman) and nearly half (Buzz Aldrin, Yogi Berra, Bill Bradley, Toni Morrison, Norman Schwarzkopf, Bruce Springsteen, Meryl Streep) are still very much with us.

Which means, of course, that the real news is not who has been inducted but who has been excluded. Yes, three of the names from Turnpike reststops have been recognized (Barton, Edison, Lombardi) but none of the state's signers of the Declaration of Independence, none of its delegates to the Constitutional Convention, and neither of its presidents: Woodrow Wilson, who was also governor, and Grover Cleveland, who lived in retirement in Princeton.

It gets worse. Bruce Springsteen is in, but Count Basie is not. Bill Bradley is in, but Aaron Burr is not. Malcolm Forbes is in, but Adm. William Halsey is not. Meryl Streep is in, but Justices Antonin Scalia and William Brennan are not. Toni Morrison is in, but Walt Whitman, Stephen Crane, William Carlos Williams, Edmund Wilson, Allen Ginsberg, and Philip Roth are not. New York Yankee Yogi Berra is in the New Jersey Hall of Fame, but Heavyweight Champion Jersey Joe Walcott, who spent his later years as sheriff of Camden County, is not.

And we're just getting started. Frankly, THE SCRAPBOOK is inclined to blame the selection process for these shocking omissions. According to the website, something called the Hall of Fame Academy--"100 of New Jersey's most prominent organizations, ethnic groups and media outlets"--compiles lists of names in various categories, and the public is invited to comment and vote. After this American Idol-style balloting, the final decision is left to a Hall of Fame Board of Commissioners--you can imagine their deliberations!--which "reserves the right to induct additional top vote getters in each category."

There's only one solution, in THE SCRAPBOOK's opinion. To restore integrity to the process, and guarantee the reputation of the New Jersey Hall of Fame, we invite our readers in the Garden State to submit names to the Academy, and THE SCRAPBOOK will exercise its influence with friends among the commissioners. Our first suggestion: actress Tara Reid, a native of Wyckoff.

Kill this Bill

A misbegotten proposal to subject just about every police and fire department to new federal collective bargaining requirements has come before the Senate. It's a terrible idea. Under the wildly misnamed "Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act," the Federal Labor Relations Authority would impose collective bargaining on all but the smallest local governments.

Roughly half of the states impose significant conditions on collective bargaining by public safety employees--two ban it outright and another dozen severely limit it. Repealing these state laws by federal fiat is bad policy; public safety employees simply don't belong in unions. Unlike 20th-century assembly line workers who were often little more than interchangeable sets of hands, public safety employees almost always have significant bargaining power. By virtue of special training, state licensing, and the government's monopoly on police power, police are difficult to replace in the short term. The same can be said of full-time professional firefighters, nearly all of them trained as paramedics. Where they exist, police and fire unions don't even need to strike--the last major public safety workers' strike happened when Boston Police took to the picket lines during 1919--to make themselves a potent political force. Even worse, the bill would extend collective bargaining protections to firefighters who work on a volunteer, part-time, or pay-per-call basis. Tiny fire departments that have as much to do with community spirit as public safety would find themselves thrown into the hurly-burly of contract negotiations.

But the worst component of the bill is its insistence on federal authority over police and fire services. America has gone from being the most dangerous and fire-prone Western nation to one of the safest and most fire-free largely because its police and fire systems respond so well to local needs. The proposed new federal authority over police and fire labor relations opens the door to greater federal authority over every other aspect of public safety.

President Bush has threatened a veto. The Senate should relieve him of this burden and vote down the -proposed law.