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Always remember the First Law of Fiscal Policy: "Wasteful" government spending is only the spending that goes to other people not to me.

When Democrats passed their $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan in the spring, it received zero GOP votes. At the time, Republican politicians decried the stimulus package as "wasteful" and a "parade of left-wing pet projects" that was "bankrupting our children." In the months since, however, Republicans have been touting projects in their states and districts financed by that very same bill.

This unearned credit-hoarding began almost immediately. Before the bill even hit President Biden's desk, Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., trumpeted its benefits for restaurant owners (while omitting mention of his own "no" vote, naturally).

Similar boasts soon followed from Republican Reps. Madison Cawthorn (N.C.), Elise Stefanik (N.Y.), Troy Balderson (Ohio), Beth Van Duyne (Tex.) and others.

Republican state officials who once derided the bill as irresponsible, mistargeted or unfair are also now eagerly hoovering up its money. Even so, some still claim to oppose it.

In her recent budget address, South Dakota Gov. Kristi L. Noem, R, blamed Biden's agenda for "horrifically high inflation" and called the stimulus package a "giant handout." She then indicated she was happy to stick her own hand out: Noem urged state lawmakers to spend South Dakota's covid-relief allotment on investments in water infrastructure, public health, workforce development, child care and many other issues that . . . sound a lot like Democratic priorities.

Noem said she considered refusing the funds. But she changed her mind, she said, because the money might then go to "California, to New Jersey, maybe Illinois, Michigan or Minnesota." That is: bluer states, where politicians are presumably less capable fiscal stewards.

Over in Ohio, Republican Gov. Mike DeWine also initially opposed the American Rescue Plan; then he signed GOP-sponsored state legislation appropriating billions of the federal package's funds toward Ohio's unemployment system, water and sewer management, pediatric behavioral health and other purposes.

In Texas, federal funds went to the unemployment system, hospitals, the tourism industry and food banks. Some dollars have also been reserved for tax cuts, though there are ongoing legal challenges about whether the money can be used this way.

This "money for me but not for thee" approach is hardly unique to the American Rescue Plan. Consider a recent plea for disaster relief from Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.

Paul fumed when his Republican colleague Sen. John Neely Kennedy (La.) asked for hurricane relief in July.After tornadoes devastated Kentucky this month, he asked Biden to "expeditiously" deploy federal assistance to his constituents. (Biden agreed and sent federal aid.)

Constituents are entitled to relief funds and public investments, even if the Republicans they elect sometimes claim otherwise. But it might be helpful if voters, on occasion, noticed that Republicans are having their cake and gorging on it, too: condemning unspecified "Biden policies" as irresponsible and inflationary, while gobbling up credit for those same policies whenever they prove popular.

Catherine Rampell writes for The Washington Post.

Continued here:
On Biden initiatives, Republicans like to have their cake and eat it, too - Palm Beach Post

I used to describe myself as a life-long conservative Republican. I do so no longer. In fact, I became a far more independent political thinker during the thankfully shortened reign of Donald J. Trump. Tragically, my former party is today led by those who favor pale skin over people of color, and those who prefer Christianity over other religious choices, or none. Any number of individual Republicans may not be racist, but the partys policies undoubtedly are. Any number of Republicans may not be hard-core Christian evangelicals, but the party prostrates itself before their altar.

Both positions are antithetical to our republic and founding instruments, the Declaration of Independence and Constitution. Neither document mentions the superiority of either skin color or religious preference as essential to our governments proper functioning. In other words, the American Republican party has become anti-democratic. President Abraham Lincoln would have been horrified at this turn of events.

There were many reasons why the Framers did not establish any of the many permutations of Christianity as a state religion. The most important is that when one religion is given ascendancy over all others, it inevitably becomes a tool of the state. Look no further than modern-day Iran or Saudi Arabia for the near-perfect example and clear warning. Theocracy is not a form of democracy. However, it is often joined-at-the-hip with various forms of government involving hereditary nobility and vicious dictatorships, which were despised by the Framers. They strove for something better: The worlds first constitutional republic a noble aspiration that we have yet to fully realize.

I am stunned at the numbers of Republicans who are either barely closeted or vociferous white supremacists. I am also stunned at how many of these same people profess association with the Christian evangelical movement. Despite the inherent and startling contradictions, racism and messianic Christianity have somehow taken-up residence within the same arch-conservative movement. There is little doubt that Jesus of Nazareth would have been horrified.

The embrace of such obvious inconsistencies creates a sharp departure from reality. The truth is sacrificed on the tabernacle of belief, serving the self-image of the believers. Nothing could be more self-serving, and at the same time, more emotionally comforting for the acolytes. Also, nothing could be more insidiously hazardous to the country.

The Republican Party seems all but lost to reason. Their tribalism and twisted slogans were on fullest display on the 6th of January at the U.S. Capital Building. Wrapped in the American flag, and with God on their side, the insurrectionists attacked the heart of our democracy the Peoples House. And they did it at the behest of the most self-serving individual to ever occupy the White House the progenitor of the Big Lie that he won the election that he so clearly lost.

One persons vanity and ego have never been more prominent in the long history of our nation. Yet, Republican Party stalwarts continue to say, Trump represents our values. If so, we are indeed in big trouble. The Republican Party today despite all denials is not only racist in character, but massively invested in multiple forms of voter suppression, militarism, the primacy of one religion, serving the best interests of the wealthy 1 Percent, and perpetuating an in-your-face false patriotism that possesses a clear predilection for violence.

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I have never in my life been more concerned for our Republic. More than anything else, the likes of Jefferson, Franklin, Washington, Adams, and Madison were persons of reason. They created a secular government as the best hope for their progeny: us. Secularism and reason are the twin pillars that have sustained our nation for well over two centuries. The Republican Party has all but abandoned both. The Framers would be horrified to see what has happened to a major American political party. I know that I am.

Robert Bruce Adolph is a retired senior Army Special Forces soldier and UN security chief. He formerly taught university classes in both U.S. Government and American History. He is a frequent guest columnist to the Tampa Bay Times, Atlantic Perspectives Magazine of the Netherlands and the Military Times. He is also author of his publishers number one best-selling book, Surviving the United Nation: The Unexpected Challenge.

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Why this conservative veteran quit the Republican Party | Column - Tampa Bay Times

Gov. Tom Wolf on Tuesday criticized a map for new congressional districts proposed by Pennsylvania House Republicans, accusing them of partisan gerrymandering to skew the map to favor the GOP.

The [Pennsylvania] Constitution invites us to do what we can to make sure the election process is a fair one, Wolf wrote to the top two House Republican leaders, Speaker Bryan Cutler (R., Lancaster) and Majority Leader Kerry Benninghoff (R., Centre). It is not an invitation to make cynical deals aimed at diminishing the importance of the vote. It is a recurring test of our commitment to the core principles of a healthy democracy. It is a test that [the GOP proposal] fails.

Wolfs comments set up a high-stakes showdown over the maps, which are based on population data from the 2020 federal census and will be used for the next decade. A spokesperson said Wolf opposes the bill in its current form and encouraged Republicans to work with Democrats to revise the map.

Wolf has refused to directly negotiate with lawmakers, saying its not his job to do so. He instead created a Redistricting Advisory Council, which laid out principles he says he will use in approving or vetoing any map he is sent.

In a letter, Wolf said the proposed congressional map violates several of those principles, including that the district populations vary too significantly without clear reason; that districts split communities, seemingly only to give Republicans an unfair edge; that the mapmaking process has been opaque with the public left in the dark about its choices; and that the map gives a structural advantage to Republican candidates that far exceeds the partys voter support.

An analysis of the map, he says, found it would consistently deliver a disproportionate number of seats to Republican candidates when compared with Pennsylvania voters preferences. This appears to be the result of intentional line-drawing choices that favor Republican candidates.

His veto would mean Pennsylvanias map for next years midterm elections, in which Republicans are hoping to win back control of Congress, could be decided by state courts. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which drew the current map in 2018, has a Democratic majority.

Wolf also took issue with the House committees process for negotiating and advancing the maps, saying he has been asked to negotiate a map with Republicans behind the scenes and would prefer that the issue be hashed out in public.

Grove on Tuesday issued a short and pointed response to Wolfs letter, saying he has taken the liberty of reserving a room in the Capitol for he and Wolf to hold a public meeting on Jan. 6.

If it is your intent to not negotiate congressional maps behind closed doors, let us meet in public, Grove wrote in a letter of his own.

Wolf swiftly declined.

The governor has already publicly provided his comments so he has no plans to accept this invitation, Wolf spokesperson Elizabeth Rementer said.

States must redraw their congressional maps every 10 years to reflect population changes. Those maps help determine the balance of power in the U.S. House of Representatives and the influence of local communities at the federal level. And because Pennsylvania is losing one of its 18 seats, one party will always have an edge going forward.

The committees map favors Republicans, with more districts likely to produce GOP representatives than Democratic ones. Republicans could gain one, if not more, congressional seats if the map becomes law.

The map is enacted as legislation, meaning it must be passed by both chambers of the Republican-controlled legislature before being approved by Wolf.

In the Senate, the Republican and Democratic chairs of the Senate State Government Committee have been negotiating for months on a separate map that they planned to introduce last week. Sen. David Argall (R., Schuylkill), the chair of the committee, said Tuesday that map was still pending with no specific timeline. The governors latest partisan rhetoric doesnt help move the process, he said.

Pennsylvania has a history of partisan gerrymandering, or drawing district boundaries for partisan advantage. In 2011, a Republican-drawn congressional map consistently elected 13 Republicans and five Democrats from the same districts, even as the state voted for Barack Obama and then Donald Trump for president and Democrat Bob Casey and Republican Pat Toomey for U.S. Senate.

In 2018, the state Supreme Court threw out the map, declaring it an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander and imposing its own map, under which Democrats and Republicans have won nine seats each.

Time is running out to have a map finalized for the May 17 primary elections, and a breakdown of the proper legislative process for enacting a congressional map would again send the issue to court.

The Pennsylvania Department of State has said maps must be in place by Jan. 24 for the state and counties to meet their election deadlines, including the Feb. 15 start of the nomination petition period for Democratic and Republican candidates to gather signatures to get on the primary ballot.

Wolf said he has significant concern about the timeline, noting that the legislature currently has only four voting days scheduled in January, including one on Jan. 24.

This is an extraordinarily compressed schedule for passage of a congressional map, presentment for my review, and resolution of any legal challenges which may be brought, and further increases my concerns about the transparency with which this process is being conducted, he wrote in the letter. It is not clear why the General Assembly did not move the process along more quickly despite an abundance of time to do so.

The legislature can reschedule the primary or change election deadlines it worked with Wolf to do so last year at the start of the pandemic, rescheduling the April 28, 2020, election for June 2 instead and some lawmakers, including Sen. Jake Corman (R., Centre), the top Republican in the chamber, have previously expressed willingness to do so.

But Senate Majority Leader Kim Ward (R., Westmoreland) told the Associated Press that she would consider moving the primary only as a last resort.

In a tweet last week, Grove said: We arent moving the primary.

A group of plaintiffs, represented by national Democratic election lawyer Marc Elias, sued the state earlier this month, saying it was clear the legislative process would fail and asking the Commonwealth Court to step in and draw a congressional map instead. (The court had dismissed an earlier lawsuit from the same plaintiffs, saying it was too early for such a challenge, but deadlines are much closer now.)

In an order last week, the court gave the legislature and Wolf until Jan. 30 to enact a congressional map. If the legislature doesnt pass one, or Wolf doesnt approve it, the court said it would instead select a plan from those submitted by the parties in the lawsuit.

The court order also said it would consider changing the 2022 election schedule if a map is not enacted by Jan. 30.

In the meantime, the plaintiffs have also asked the state Supreme Court to take up the issue itself and draw a map again, skipping the Commonwealth Court process altogether.

Originally posted here:
Pennsylvania congressional redistricting fight heats up as Gov. Wolf pushes back on House GOP proposal - The Philadelphia Inquirer

To the editor: Yes, most Republicans so far have preferred to shrug off the House committees investigation of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Any findings that conclusively fault former President Trump for facilitating the insurrection would scuttle the GOPs chances in upcoming elections. (Bigger holes keep appearing in the Big Lie, Opinion, Dec. 17)

It wasnt always this way. Some 47 years ago, few Republicans disregarded the gravity of President Nixons abuses of power. After Nixons release of his smoking gun tape recordings, GOP leaders urged him to resign. A few days later, he did.

One big difference with the 1970s explains why integrity seems so lacking among many of todays politicians: That decade was not deluged with politically skewed news outlets and social media sites that enable rampant disinformation and delusional groupthink to influence party leaders.

We can only hope that former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows release of text messages sent on Jan. 6 and the weeks before will prove as promotive of justice as the release of Nixons recordings did.

Devra Mindell, Santa Monica

..

To the editor: As we approach the one-year anniversary of the assault on the Capitol, and as the House Jan. 6 committee advances its investigation into the insurrection, one thing is clear the thugs that temporarily prevented Congress from fulfilling its constitutional duty of confirming then-President-elect Bidens victory were not the only subversives who attempted to overturn the 2020 election.

The list is long and includes members of the Republican Party in Congress who encouraged others to participate in the bungled coup.

Should Republicans regain control of Congress in the 2022 midterm election, it may be too late to halt Americas march toward autocracy.

The electorate, shackled by measures in a number of states that make it extremely difficult to sway elections, must be unencumbered to function legitimately. It is time to end the filibuster and enact the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.

Our democracy may not survive otherwise.

Jim Paladino, Tampa, Fla.

..

To the editor: Perhaps Time magazine should have named the Big Lie as its person of the year for 2021

Mike Aguilar, Costa Mesa

Link:
What will it take for Republicans to give up on Trump? - Los Angeles Times

The clock on congressional redistricting in New Jersey for 1972 began in 1970 when Gov. William Cahill was trying to clear the field for GOP State Chairman Nelson Gross to run for the United States Senate.

Republicans thought they could beat two-term incumbent Harrison Williams with Gross, who had served as an assemblyman from Bergen County and had close ties to President Richard Nixon. Standing in his way was State Sen. Joseph Maraziti (R-Boonton), a longtime Morris County legislator who wanted to run for the U.S. Senate.

Cahill and legislative leaders offered Maraziti a deal: in exchange for dropping his U.S. Senate bid, he would chair the committee that would redraw New Jerseys fifteen congressional districts for the 1972 election. Maraziti took the deal; Gross lost his race by twelve points.

Jersey style, Maraziti drew a district for himself.

Maraziti eliminated one of the two Hudson County congressional seats, putting Democrats Dominick Daniels (D-Jersey City) and Cornelius Gallagher (D-Bayonne) into a primary fight.

The new 13th district was hugely Republican. It started East Hanover and went through northern Morris County, picked up all of Hunterdon, Sussex and Warren counties, and ended in northern Mercer. In the 1968 presidential election, the towns in the new 13th had given Richard Nixon a 55%-36% win over Democrat Hubert Humphrey.

Not all Republicans were thrilled with the map. Assembly Speaker Thomas H. Kean (R-Livingston) and State Sen. James H. Wallwork (R-Short Hills), both potential congressional candidates in the future, saw their hometowns put into a district that went through Morris and Somerset counties into Princeton.

The map went to federal court and a three-judge panel upheld it they tinkered with the plan by moving the boundary between two Bergen-based districts so that South Hackensack wasnt split.

The new map put the entire city of Newark into the 10th, a move designed to make the 11th district seat of five-term Rep. Joseph Minish (D-West Orange) more competitive. The candidate the map was draw for was former State Sen. Milton Waldor (R-South Orange), who had lost his Senate seat in 1971 by 908 votes to Essex County Freeholder Wynona M. Lipman. (Lipman, who would later move from Montclair to Newark to survive 1973 legislative redistricting, became the first Black woman to serve in the New Jersey Senate and remained there until her death in 1999.)

Maraziti faced a primary challenge from two assemblymen, Walter Keough-Dwyer (R-Vernon) and Karl Weidel (D-Pennington), and Delmar Miller, Sr., a political newcomer from Ewing who ran under the slogan Speaking for the Silent Majority. Maraziti won big: a 7,491 vote, 50%-25% victory over Keough-Dwyer, with Weidel finishing third with 17% and Miller getting 8%.

Three Morris County candidates sought the Democratic nomination: Joseph P. ODoherty, Jerome Kessler and Norma Herzfeld. ODoherty won the nomination by 1,248 votes over Kessler, 43%-35%, with Herzfeld receiving 22%. (Kessler and Herzfeld both won Democratic legislative primaries in 1977 but lost the general election.)

During the primary, Herzfeld filed a lawsuit challenging ODohertys constitutional eligibility to run for Congress, alleging that the Irish-born Chester resident had not become a U.S. citizen until 1967.

ODoherty dropped out of the race a week after the primary.

Democratic State Chairman Salvatore Bontempo convinced former New Jersey First Lady Helen Meyner to become the replacement candidate. The wife of former Gov. Robert Meyner and the cousin of former Democratic presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson, Meyner lived in Princeton but had a home in Phillipsburg, where her husband had served as a state senator.

In the general election, Maraziti defeated Meyner by 25,154 votes, 56%43%. Nixon carried the 13th by a 70%-40% margin over Democrat George McGovern.

Under a Republican-drawn map, Democrats won eight of the states 15 House seats, a net pickup of one.

Republicans held the open seat of retiring eight-term Rep. Florence Dwyer (R-Elizabeth), with State Sen. Matthew Rinaldo (R-Union) defeated former State Sen. Jerry Fitzgerald English by 27 points.

The closest an incumbent came to losing was in the Middlesex-based 15th when newcomer Fuller Brooks held five-term Rep. Edward Patten to a 52%-48% win. Nixon won the district by 22 points.

In a Camden-Gloucester district, three-term Rep. John Hunt (R-Pitman) defeated 35-year-old Assemblyman Jim Florio (D-Runnemede) by a 52.5%-47% margin. Nixon carried the 1st, 60%-40%.

Four much-heralded GOP challengers fell way short: former Nixon White House aide Bill Dowd, making his second bid to unseat four-term Rep. James Howard (D-Spring Lake Heights), received 47% of the vote. Frank Thompson, Jr. (D-Trenton) won his 9th term by a 58%-42% margin against Assemblyman Peter Garibaldi (R-Monroe); Assemblyman Alfred Schiaffo (R-Closter) lost to four-term Rep. Henry Helstoski (D-East Rutherford), 56%-44%; and Minish beat Waldor 18 points. Nixon carried all four of these districts by double-digit margins.

Daniels won the Hudson Democratic primary with 51% against West New York Mayor Anthony DeFino (32%), Gallagher (1%) and former Rep. Vincent Dellay (2%0. He received 61% in the general election.

Republican Map Flips to 12-3 Democratic

Even though Republicans drew the new congressional map, the Watergate scandal resulted in the loss of four seats in the 1974 mid-term elections that came three months after Nixon resigned the presidency.

Florio ousted Hunt by 19 points, 57.5%-38.5% in the 1st district. The GOP has never been able to win that seat back.

In the 2nd district, four-term Rep. Charles Sandman (R-Erma), the unsuccessful Republican candidate for governor in 1973, lost his seat to former Cape May County First Assistant Prosecutor William J. Hughes by 16 points.

Democrats flipped the Bergen County-based seat of 12-term Rep. William Widnall (R-Ridgewood) by five points. The winner was Democrat Andrew Maguire, who had served in the administration of President Lyndon B. Johnson.

Local newspapers aimed considerable coverage at Maraziti, whose seat on the House Judiciary Committee put him on national television as Nixons defender. He voted against all three articles of impeachment.

Maraziti also became bogged down in a scandal as he faced a rematch with Meyner.

Meyner had to first win a Democratic primary. She faced ODoherty, who now met the citizenship requirement, former Hunterdon County Prosecutor Oscar Rittenhouse, and Fairleigh Dickinson University Professor Bernard Reiner.

Her 47% -26% win in the Democratic primary was unimpressive. She defeated ODoherty by just 3,801 votes, with Rittenhouse finishing third with 18% and Reiner at 9%. Meyner won everywhere but Hunterdon, where Rittenhouse defeated her, 49%-36%.

Maraziti put his 35-year-old girlfriend, Linda Collinson, on his congressional payroll in a no-show job while she continued to work at Marazitis Morris County law firm.

Collinson was outed after she applied for a loan with the House Credit Union. A staffer in Marazitis Washington office told the credit union that she had never heard of Collinson.

Reporters later discovered that Maraziti owned the house Collinson lived in.

Maraziti was also damaged by reports that a Warren County newspaper fired their managing editor, Donald Thatcher, after learning that he was also on Marazitis congressional payroll. Later, news broke that Nicholas DiRienzo, the general manager of two New Jersey radio stations, was also on the congressmans staff.

Meyner became one of the Watergate Babies, defeating Maraziti by a 57%-43% margin. She carried Mercer with 65%, Warren with 61%, Hunterdon with 58%, Morris with 56%, and Sussex with 51%.

There was one open seat in 1974: Rep. Peter Frelinghuysen (R-Harding) retired after 22 years in Congress. Republican Millicent Fenwick (R-Bernardsville) defeated Kean by 83 votes in the GOP primary a little more of Essex under the Maraziti map would have sent Kean to Congress. She won the general election by a 53%-43% margin against Fred Bohen, a former Johnson White House staffer.

GOP Gains

By the end of a map drawn by the GOP, Republicans had picked up just two of the seats they lost in Watergate, plus two more. In a decade, the map went from 9-6 Democratic to 8-7 Democratic. During the decade, six incumbents lost re-election.

In 1976, Republicans flipped the Bergen-Hudson 9th district seat after six-term incumbent Henry Helstoski became embroiled in a scandal. The winner, by a 53%-44% margin, was former State Sen. Harold Hollenbeck (R-East Rutherford).

Meyner held the 13th seat by 5,241 votes, 50%-48%, in 1976 against former State Sen. William Schluter (R-Pennington). President Gerald Ford had carried the district that year by a 50%-41% margin against Democrat Jimmy Carter.

But 1978, Carters mid-term election, Meyner lost.

After his close call, Schluter sought a rematch against Meyner in 1978. This time, Schluter faced a strong primary opponent, Assistant Warren County Prosecutor Jim Courter. Courter beat Schluter by just 134 votes in a campaign managed by Roger Bodman, who would go on to run Keans campaign for governor and later serve in his cabinet. Courter unseated Meyner that year by a 52%-48% margin.

Ford had also carried the 7th, 58%-42%, but Maguire defeated Republican James Sheehan, a Wyckoff township committeeman, by 13 points to secure a second term.

The Republican challenger against Maguire in 1978 was Marge Roukema, a former Ridgewood school board member.

Roukema won the primary, 39%-32%, against a well-known name in the Republican primary: Joseph Woodcock (R-Cliffside Park), who served 12 years as an assemblyman and state senator, four years as the Bergen County prosecutor, and was briefly a candidate for the 1977 Republican gubernatorial nomination.

Maguire won by six points but lost a 1980 rematch to Roukema

The Republicans also picked up the 4th district. Thompson, a 26-year incumbent and the chairman of the House Administration Committee, was implicated in the FBI sting operation known as Abscam, when an undercover agent pretending to be an Arab sheik offered the congressman a cash bribe to help him circumvent federal immigration laws.

Republican Christopher Smith was the 25-year-old executive director of New Jersey Right to Life when he challenged Thompson in 1978. He lost by 24 points.

But with Thompson under indictment, Smith beat Thompson by 26,967 votes, a 47%-41% margin. Hes held the seat for the last 41 years.

Hughes held the 2nd district seat in 1976 against the strongest possible Republican challenger, Assemblyman James Hurley (R-Millville). He won 62%-38% in a district where Carter beat Ford by two points.

In the 15th district, Republicans nearly unseated Patten.

details began emerging about Pattens involvement in the Koreagate scandal. Lobbyist Tongsun Park was charged with using funds provided by the government of South Korea to bribe six congressmen as part of a bid to ensure that the United States kept their military presence there.

The allegation against Patten was that he solicited an illegal campaign contribution from Park, including funds that found their way into the account of the Middlesex County Democrats. Patten allegedly took cash contributions from Park and then wrote personal checks to the county organization.

A 30-year-old Edison attorney, George Spadoro, challenged Patten in the Democratic primary and held him to 59% of the vote, a 6,323-vote plurality. (Spadoro would later become the mayor of Edison and an assemblyman.)

Summer headlines on Koreagate dominated the summer news, as well as Pattens testimony before the House Ethics Committee. Patten steadfastly proclaimed his innocence. In October, the Ethics panel voted unanimously to clear him of the charges. And the Friday before the election, state Attorney General John Degnan announced that he had cleared Patten of any wrongdoing in Koreagate, which had become a state issue since some of the contributions had come to the county party organization.

Patten also faced allegations that he failed to disclose his assets as required by House rules. Patten had filed a financial disclosure saying that he had no personal assets; he eventually announced that all his assets were in his wifes name.

The scandal took its toll on Patten. He won re-election, but just narrowly 48%46%, with a plurality of only 2,836 votes, against Republican Charles Wiley, a conservative radio commentator from Sayreville.

New Jersey lost one congressional seat after the 1980 census.

Excerpt from:
The time NJ Republicans won the congressional map but lost the election - New Jersey Globe | New Jersey Politics