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TRENTON — A coalition of activist groups opposed to the war in Iraq announced a campaign Tuesday to target New Jersey members of Congress who voted against a resolution condemning the escalation of troops.
The group – Americans Against Escalation In Iraq – promised a campaign that will include paid advertising, rallies, e-mails, test messages phone calls and the Internet.
"It is our job to hold members of Congress accountable and to make sure their constituents are well aware of their positions on this, the most defining issue of our times," said Ev Liebman, program director for New Jersey Citizen Action, one of the groups involved in the nationwide coalition.
At the group's urging, state lawmakers are scheduled to bring the Iraq debate to the Assembly floor Thursday with a resolution opposing the president's decision to send additional troops to Iraq.
"This has to be done at a state level, otherwise it doesn't seem this administration is going to get the message," said Assemblyman Reed Gusciora, D-Mercer, one of the sponsors of the resolution.
Congress approved a similar resolution in January. None of New Jersey's six Republican members of Congress voted for it.
More than 6,000 New Jersey troops have been sent to Iraq since the war began almost four years ago, and 53 service members from the state have been killed in combat.
The Rev. Robert Moore, of Coalition for Peace Action, said he was ashamed of the Republican members in New Jersey's congressional delegation for voting against the wishes of their constituents.
"Those kinds of votes should put their political future in peril," Moore said. "That's the way Democracy is supposed to work."
In southern New Jersey, U.S. Rep. Jim Saxton, R-3rd, voted against the resolution. U.S. Rep. Frank LoBiondo, R-2nd, missed the vote to attend his father-in-law's funeral, but in an earlier speech on the floor of the House he said he opposed Bush's escalation plan but opposed the resolution as well, calling it the wrong message to send to the troops. He said the resolution was "silent in its requirements to the elected Iraqi government and the Iraqi people to take hold of their own destiny and of their own country."
"On the basis that this non-binding, non-substantive resolution is simply an exercise in politics rather than a meaningful practice in policy, I cannot in good conscience support this resolution in the same breath that I support our troops," LoBiondo said.
Copyright 2007 Press of Atlantic City