Nothing Of Significance Happened In Trenton Today

By Art Gallagher

Senate President Steve Sweeney called the upper house into session today…it can’t honestly be said that he called it “to order”…to vote on 15 of Governor Christie’s 39 line item vetoes in the State Budget.

There was grand standing, name calling, yelling and screaming, but in the end all of the override votes failed, just as everyone knew they would before the show started.   Only Senator Jennifer Beck broke partisan ranks to vote with the Democrats to increase Planned Parenthood funding by $7.5 million.  The measure still failed.

Tomorrow the Senate will repeat the process.

Nothing real will happen until Governor Christie returns from vacation on Friday.

• Tweet

Will Salary Cuts Plug The Budget Hole?

By Art Gallagher

Yesterday afternoon on the LaRossa and Gallagher radio show I asked Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon how the $790 million dollar hole in Governor Christie’s proposed budget would be filled.  Christie’s budget assumed $300 million in savings during the coming fiscal year from healtcare reform.  The legislation likely to be passed in the Assembly only yields a savings of $10 million this year.   Last month the State Supreme Court ruled that the state must spend $500 million more than Christie budgeted on Abbott district school spending.

O’Scanlon pointed to increased revenue projections and to yet to be determined savings from the new healthcare deal, but acknowledged that he and the other legislators crafting the budget have tough choices to make between now and June 30 when the budget must be passed.

June 30 is the deadline for the state budget to be enacted.  June 30th is also the expiration date of the current union contracts for 48,000 state workers.  Once the pension and benefits reforms are passed by the Assembly tomorrow, there will be an intense sprint to meet those deadlines in one week.

Mark Magyar, a former deputy policy chief in the Whitman administration and the policy director for the 2009 Daggett for Governor campaign,writing at NJ Spotlight, raises the possibility that Governor Christie could impose a new contract on the state workers.

The 1968 public employee collective bargaining law gives the governor and mayors the power to impose contracts on non-uniformed employees.  Christie would be the first governor to use that power.

Magyar says that negotiations with the unions started late and have been on hold while Christie and the legislature worked on the pension and health carereforms.  Christie has proposed a 3.5% pay cut.

I’ve been scratching by head trying to figure out why Christie and the Republicans in the legislature have been celebrating the health care reforms that only yield $10 million, rather than $300 million, in savings while the Democrats are waging a civil war over the deal.

O’Scanlon says the health care deal agreed to is not Reform In Name Only, that they will produce real savings over time.  That might be true.  But it seems like another kick the can down the road.

If Christie exercises his executive power to reduce the cost of government now by imposing union contracts that recover the savings given up the the health care deal we would know that we got real reform. Not delayed reform.  That would be turning Trenton upside down.

• Tweet

A3242 May Not Be Dead Yet

By Art Gallagher

Assembly bill A3242, the one that would allow school districts to ask, without your informed consent, your sons and daughters if they have ever had oral sex and how much money you earn, may not be dead yet.

The bill was pulled from the Assembly Education Committee’s calendar yesterday due to the overwhelming response in opposition to the bill from MMM and RightDirection readers.  That should have killed the bill until at least the fall when the legislature returns from its summer recess.

However, our spies deep within the Democratic Assembly Caucus tell us that the bill’s remaining sponsors are prevailing upon Speaker Shelia Oliver to post the bill for a vote before the full Assembly next Thursday, bypassing committee hearings.

Sneaky sneaky sneaky.  Good thing we have spies.

The Assembly does have a voting session next Thursday, the 23rd, but none of the bills to be voted on have been posted yet.

MMM will be monitoring the board.  Be ready to make phone calls and send emails.  Even if A3242 is not posted, it is likely that there will be at least one bill (A3839 — end of life counseling AKA death panels) that will need opposition.

• Tweet

Double, Triple Dippers In The Legislature

By Art Gallagher

36 of the 120 members of the NJ Legislature, 9 of them Republicans, hold additional government jobs, according to this piece at NJ.com.

Hudson County Senator Nicholas Sacco is the biggest money maker, pulling in $214,260 as an assistant school superintendent in North Bergen.

Union County Assemblyman Joe Cryan, the majority leader and former state Democratic Chairman makes $111,772 as a Union County Undersheriff.

Of the Monmouth County legislative delegation, only Senator Sean Kean is on the list.  Kean makes “at least” $25,000 per gig as an attorney for Tinton Falls and Howell.  Kean also makes less than $10,000 as an attorney for Union Beach, according the the graphic in the NJ.com piece. 

Kean is the only practicing attorney in the Monmouth County delegation.  Assemblywoman Caroline Casagrande is an attorney but is not practicing.  She is a full time legislator and a full time mom.

• Tweet