A very good investigative report in The Star-Ledger today asks the question: “Did ‘800-lb. gorillas’ sit on property tax reform?”
The story details the money spent by a variety of special interests to point the tax reform effort in directions that would benefit them, or at least not hurt them much.
Lobbying reports released yesterday show groups with the biggest stake in
property tax reform spent more than $1.9 million last year to influence lawmakers. At the same time, key legislators extracted nearly $569,000 in campaign contributions from the same groups.
Labor unions, the New Jersey Business and Industry Association, engineering firms — all tossed in quite a bit of change to stymie the reform efforts.
Which underscores an important reality. Real reform is unlikely unless we can reform the campaign finance system. The proposed clean elections pilot — a rather weak extension of 200’s badly flawed pilot — is not enough. A much more extensive pilot — covering at least six districts and including the primaries and third parties, as proposed by the clean elections committee — needs to be tried, with a promise of a full-legislative program being put in place by the next Assembly election.
Without it, all budgetary and tax reform efforts — along with needed consumer, environmental and labor reform legislation — will be hijacked by money.
Don’t believe me? Ask Matt Shapiro, an unpaid lobbyist for New Jersey’s 1 million tenants who was quoted in the Ledger story:
“Had we been a group that made large campaign contributions, we would have had more access,” Shapiro said. “We’ve had conversations, but we were not legitimately a part of that process.”
Any questions?
South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
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Hank Kalet 