Alfred Doblin provides us with today’s offering, from a column on the state Legislature’s busy agenda on its final day in session before new members are sworn in:
It’s puzzling why the last weeks of legislative sessions are called “lame duck.” Does any legislative body have the inside track on not being lame the rest of the year?
That is a question for the ages.
South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick
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Charles Stile in The Record touches on a note similar to the one I strike in my own column today: the unlikelihood that the Legislature will pass real reforms.
Governor Corzine has promised a renewed agenda on the issue this year, and so have leaders of the Legislature. But Corzine’s State of the State speech next week will be almost solely devoted to his plan to restructure state debt by raising tolls. That obsession will probably eat up much of his agenda this year. And he is not likely to do something dramatic, such as extend New Jersey’s pay-to-play ban with a sweeping executive order, which has been pushed by campaign finance advocates.
There will be little appetite or time for sweeping reforms this year. Besides, the Democratic leadership is not inclined to unilaterally level the playing field just because their Republican counterparts say it’s the right thing to do.
Senate President Dick Codey is a cautious incrementalist, not a firebrand reformer. Assembly Speaker Joe Roberts wants to “put everything on the table” for discussion and also talks of a future in which all legislative contests operate under “clean elections” guidelines. Sounds intriguing, but I suspect we’ll see a raft of smaller reforms while we wait for the full realization of his utopian vision.
Stile then offers some interesting ideas — “small, albeit important steps that lawmakers can take this year that could serve as critical building blocks of reform”:
Require candidates and campaign committees to spend most of their contributions on their own races. This would limit sending — or “wheeling” — large blocks of money from one part of the state to another. Shrewd contributors donate to several county committees and races, with the hope (and tacit understanding) that it will be spent for some of the sky’s-the-limit battles. But the practice allows donors to evade contribution limits and makes party leaders indebted to special interests who pay the tab. Codey has talked about passing a law that plainly states that “wheeling” is illegal. That’s not enough.
Limit the amount of money legislative leaders can spend on races. There was something surreal last year in watching legislative leaders wiring World Bank-sized loans to pay for life-and-death power struggles in the wilderness of Cape May and Cumberland counties. The only ones who benefited were political consultants, who got a percentage for the cost of producing all those negative mailers and television ads. I know this is wishful thinking, but I don’t feel the panel that promoted the creation of these legislative leadership committees in 1993 envisioned giving them this kind of corporate power to raise and spend money. Ban state contractors from making donations to legislative leaders. The pay-to-play ban prohibits donors from receiving lucrative state contracts if they gave contributions to the governor or to the campaign accounts controlled by the governor’s party, such as county committees. But donors get around that by giving to legislative leaders, who are exempt from the ban. Close the loophole in the state pay-to-play ban that exempts politically connected law firms, engineers, architects and other professional services. Technically, the ban does restrict these firms from getting state work, but it only forbids principals who hold at least a 10 percent equity stake in the firm. That allows firms’ partners and associates to continue giving without fear of penalty.
These are intriguing reforms that, absent the larger changes needed, could keep the notion of ethics on the table.
South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick
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Dispatches is up on the site. With a new Legislature set to be seated, it is time for the governor to step up to the plate.
South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick
E-mail me by clicking here.
There is a good post on Blue Jersey about how Tuesday’s status quo election may offer the Democrats a two-year window to get reform done and that, should they left it close, they are likely to find themselves feeling the wrath of voters.
Here is the response I offered:
I am in complete agreement with Mr. Rudy that the time has passed for reform to take place. Property taxes are too high, there are too many layers of government in this state and too many people with too many hands in too many tills.
But I am less optimistic that the voters want reform. My suspicion, from covering elections over the years and writing about local and state government, is that voters know their is a problem and want it fixed, but that they want it fixed without there being any pain — or at least no pain for them.
So suburban voters are ready to toss the urban school kids overboard and residents of towns who are unlikely to face consolidation want to see consolidation happen elsewhere.
Consider Jamesburg, which has almost no tax base and nearly had to close its library this year. Jamesburg should merge with Monroe — it is the donought hole to Monroe’s donought — but its elected officials are vehemently opposed to consolidation, as are Monroe’s. I understand this from a purely parochial point of view — no one wants to put themselves out of a job — but it is an example of the difficulties that consolidating municipalties will face. That’s why I was chagrined to find that the consolidation commission that was created earlier this year was defanged before it ever came into being (originally, towns would have been forced to merge after a vote of the Legislature).
There is a need for progressives to craft a bold plan for reform — municipal and school consolidation, a general reduction in the number of taxing districts (there are about 1,400 in the state right now), a realignment of the counties (elimination??), a new school-funding formula, an increased reliance on income taxes (this would not only reduce property taxes but change the warped, tax-chasing incentives that drive our land-use decisions), etc.
Much of this may not be popular — as I said, New Jerseyans tend to want others to pay for their reforms — and it could lead to some volatility. I would argue — as Mr. Rudy does — that the volatility already is there.
We’ve wasted too much time spinning our wheels. Let’s get the reform
train moving forward.
South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick
E-mail me by clicking here.
There are those — myself included — who see the defeat of the first two ballot questions as a slap against using budget gimmicks and pushing the state farther into debt. We editorialized against the first three questions for a simple reason: The state is without a plan to address its debt problem or its structural deficit and shouldn’t borrow more money until it crafts one.
I stand by that idea. I hope our elected leaders will listen, address the issue and then come back with the stem cell plan when money is not so tight.
South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick
E-mail me by clicking here.
Hank Kalet 