Has the NJFPC lost its moral authority?

The New Jersey Family Policy Council (NJFPC) is a not-for-profit corporation organized under Section 501(c)(3) of the IRS Code.  The group is supposed to be educational, not political.  According to its public filings with the IRS, the NJFPC has been around since 1996.  It’s mission is to support traditional conservative religious values such as the right-to-life.

The NJFPC is run by Len Deo, who as President of the NJFPC received a salary of $103,225.00 in 2016.  William Horsey is the Chairman and Ray Velez is the Vice Chairman/Treasurer.  They, along with 8 trustees, are responsible for the actions of the NJFPC.  The NJFPC also operates a lobby organization called NJ Family First, but this organization does not appear to be genuinely independent, relying totally on the operations of its parent for its existence. 

According to the public records filed with the IRS, the NJFPC was recently operating in the red.  Salaries account for most of the NJFPC’s outflow.   Since 2014, financial contributions to the NJFPC have steeply declined. 

So where did they come up with the money to trash a pro-life, conservative candidate in a Republican Primary?

Just before the June 5th Republican primary, NJ Family First – a subsidiary of the New Jersey Family Policy Council – did something it has never done before.  It instructed Republican primary voters on how to vote, explicitly telling them to vote for one candidate and against another.

They had never done so against a Democrat.  Even the most liberal, far-left, anti-traditional values, pro-abortion Democrats have been spared this kind of treatment.  They saved this kind of trashing for a Republican.

And guess which Republican they attacked?

Yes, the NJFPC attacked the most consistently Pro-Life/Pro-Traditional Values Republican in New Jersey.  The conservative Republican who led the fight and who put the money together to defeat the 2007 ballot question to use taxpayer money to fund embryonic stem-cell research in New Jersey.  The conservative Republican who led the fight and who put the money together to defeat Garden State Equality’s same-sex marriage legislative push in 2009-10.  The conservative Republican who led the fight and who put the money together to stop the nomination of left-wing sexologist Janet Rosenzweig as the State’s Commissioner of the Department of Children and Families. 

The NJFPC chose to attack Steve Lonegan, a conservative Republican who was ENDORSED by the New Jersey Right to Life PAC, the National Right to Life PAC, United States Senator Ted Cruz, United States Senator Rand Paul, State Senator Mike Doherty, State Senator Gerry Cardinale, State Senator Joe Pennacchio, State Senator Steve Oroho, and every other Pro-Life Legislator in the State.

Why?  And from where did they get the money to pay for the attack?

The answer to that question might lay with who the NJFPC’s attack mailer asked voters to support:  Pro-abortion candidate John McCann.  Yes, the same John McCann who challenged Scott Garrett and Gerry Cardinale for the 5th District Congressional seat in 2002 on the grounds that they were “Pro-Life” and “too conservative.”

Just days before the NJFPC’s attack mailer hit, McCann was quoted in the Bergen Record (June 1, 2018):

“Lonegan is staunchly pro-life, and recently told an audience at the Knights of Columbus in Fair Lawn that he'd support every anti-abortion bill that came before him. He's tried to tag McCann as being pro-choice, but McCann says the label doesn't fit.  

‘I believe that life begins at conception,’ McCann said.

But when asked whether he would support any future bill to further limit abortion, McCann indicated he would not.

‘The law is what is,’ he said.”

John McCann has made so many contradictory  statements regarding traditional values, conservatives, abortion – even with regards to his own spouse (an OB-GYN physician).  McCann is clearly uncomfortable with the people who support groups like the NJFPC.  Year in and year out, the New Jersey Family Policy Council pleads for money from good traditional values conservatives.  Is this how NJFPC uses its good name?

How is the New Jersey Family Policy Council ever going to get its good name back?  Having seen its endorsement so obviously compromised – some would say “bought” – how can the NJFPC hold its head up to take a principled stand?  How can it ever be taken seriously again?

John McCann admits to The Record that he’s pro-abortion/anti-gun rights.

From our very first interview with congressional candidate John McCann, we found him to be a very different kind of Republican candidate.  Here are some curious FACTS about McCann:

John McCann was recruited from a Democrat office to run in the Republican primary for Congress.  That’s right, McCann was a $151,000 a year (plus benefits) Bergen County patronage employee – working for a Democrat office holder in a Democrat-controlled county – when he was plucked from obscurity to challenge long time conservative Steve Lonegan. 

McCann, an attorney, had a deal with his Democrat employers that was so good that they allowed him to collect $498,000 in “fees” in one year – that’s in addition to his full-time salary (with benefits).  That’s right, he owed the Democrats a lot.

John McCann is the hand-picked candidate of a party boss who was convicted on public corruption charges and sent to prison.  Read more on that here:

https://www.jerseyconservative.org/blog/2018/5/24/murphy-endorsement-of-mccann-endangers-hugin

John McCann’s political consultant is a Democrat who ran the campaigns of some of the most far-left candidates in his state’s history.  McCann’s campaign chair is a liberal pro-abortion acolyte of former Governor Christie Whitman.  McCann’s campaign manager holds contracts from Democrat politicians. 

Now comes the latest…

Since his campaign began, John McCann has flipped back and forth on where he stands on abortion and guns.  A long time pro-choicer on abortion and advocate for gun-control, McCann started his campaign embracing those positions in order to give his candidacy clear blue water between him and Lonegan.  He even argued that a Pro-Lifer/ Pro-Gun guy like Lonegan couldn’t win.

Then they did a poll…  McCann’s team sat their candidate down and told him to lie.  To his credit, he showed some reluctance in public… but his campaign communications and especially his campaign mail hasn’t.  It’s been a full on lie and a remarkably disciplined lie so far as the campaign is concerned.

But then you have the candidate.  He gets caught in these interviews, where he reverts to form – to the positions on Life and the Second Amendment that McCann has held all his life and that are dear to him.  A case in point, was Friday’s Bergen Record.  Here, read it for yourself…

Lonegan is staunchly pro-life, and recently told an audience at the Knights of Columbus in Fair Lawn that he'd support every anti-abortion bill that came before him. He's tried to tag McCann as being pro-choice, but McCann says the label doesn't fit.  

"I believe that life begins at conception," McCann said.

But when asked whether he would support any future bill to further limit abortion, McCann indicated he would not. 

"The law is what is," he said. 

Hey, that’s NOT Pro-Life.  That is pro-status quo, which equals, pro-abortion.

Now on guns:

Both candidates wrap themselves in the Second Amendment right to bear arms. McCann favors requiring universal background checks on perspective [sic] gun buyers but Lonegan opposes them they would  just "add another layer of bureaucracy."

Ditto on the Second Amendment.

Here read the whole article for yourselves:

https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/politics/2018/06/01/nj-election-2018-john-mccann-steve-lonegan-congress-candidates-play-trump-card-primary/659599002/

Too bad the New Jersey Family Policy Council chose the day after this Bergen Record article hit to do an attack on Steve Lonegan and an endorsement of John McCann as a pro-lifer that clearly fell outside the group’s non-profit guidelines.  It looks like John McCann, the candidate, couldn’t help himself and ended up screwing the reputation of the NJFPC and its leadership.  Who ever sweet-talked the NJFPC into doing this has a lot to answer for.