I can't figure out why the New Jersey legislature is once again considering a change in the venerable -- and, arguably, quaint -- governance structure of Rutgers University, which has a board of governors as well as a (less powerful) board of trustees.
Wasn't it enough that the public resoundingly rejected that horrendous 2012 plan to amputate Rutgers-Camden from the rest of the state university system and turn it into a semi-subsidiary of Rowan University? Could it be that the pesky trustee board threatened to sue if such a plan were executed?
So I ask a spokesman for state Senate President Steve Sweeney, the formidable force behind the latest Rutgers reformation proposal, to help me understand. Graciously, the Senate president himself responds to my request.
He calls and I ask him whether adding four new gubernatorial appointees to the powerful board of governors -- is all about…politics?
"That's a bunch of crap," the famously plainspoken Gloucester County Democrat says. "The answer is no. The fact is the majority on the board have always been gubernatorial appointees." The current ratio is 8-7, following an expansion that took effect in 2013; the proposed add-ons would boost the gubernatorial majority (these members serve with the consent of the Senate) to 12-7.
But I digress.
Sweeney notes that the addition of two medical schools and other portions of the now-defunct University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (the scandal-plagued state university where governance was politics!) means the Rutgers board of governors simply ought to include four more people with medical backgrounds.
I also ask whether he's spoken to the state Office of Legislative Services about the constitutionality of his proposal. He says he hasn't, but rather has spoken to lawyers who have indicated the measure would stand up to such scrutiny.
I also ask why having two boards is such a bad thing. "It's not needed," he says, describing the trustee board as a body "that says no to everything just to say no."
Oh.
--KEVIN RIORDAN