Inside the State House - Your Role - New Jersey League of Municipalities

New Jersey’s municipal officials can be assured that through the League, the concerns of local government are being brought to the attention of the state Legislature on a daily basis. Through the League the concerned voices of municipalities are being heard in Trenton.

How can you help your League of Municipalities to defeat bad legislation and encourage the passage of good legislation? How does the legislative process work? What is the process by which a bill becomes law?

The first Annual Session of New Jersey’s 214th Legislature began on January 12, 2010. Over the next two years important decisions will be made on scores of bills that could affect your municipality. To make an impact on those vital decisions, local officials must know how the process works, how the League speaks for local interests, and how they can help.

An estimated 10,000 bills and resolutions are introduced in the average two-year term of the Legislature. Approximately 2,500 of these bills will have an impact on at least one, occasionally several, and quite often all of the 566 municipalities in the Garden State. The debate in the legislative halls in Trenton, consequently, is of major importance to you, the municipal official.

The progress of a typical bill begins with its introduction by one (or more) of the 80 members of the General Assembly or by one (or more) of the 40 members of the Senate. In addition to the primary sponsor, many bills have several co-sponsors.

At the time of introduction, bills are assigned a number and read by number and title only. They are then normally assigned by the presiding officer of the house to one of several standing committees for detailed study. The presiding officer of the Senate is its President. The presiding officer in the General Assembly is the Speaker.

There are a number of committees in the Senate and General Assembly. For municipal officials, the committees dealing with municipal and local government issues are the most important.

The League has six governmental affairs agents. They are Executive Director Bill Dressel, Assistant Executive Director Michael Darcy, Staff Attorney Matthew Weng and Legislative Analysts Lori Buckelew, Mike Cerra and Jon Moran. They monitor the weekly meetings of these and other committees and provide the committee members with background on the League’s position on the bills under their consideration.

Sometimes these committees will schedule full-scale public hearings on bills which are especially important or controversial. The League alerts municipal officials around the state to these hearings, and arranges to have mayors and other local leaders on hand to testify on behalf of municipal interests. Additionally, they regularly alert municipal clerks on hot button topics. By keeping in touch with your municipal clerk, you can maximize your impact on the final legislative product. This gives you the opportunity to phone your legislative representatives to relate the League’s position on the particular bill. This has proven to be a very effective lobbying tool.

Many bills, whether or not they become the subject of public hearings, remain in the respective committees and never move further. Other measures, however, do receive favorable consideration and are voted out by the members of the committee.

The bill, once released by the committee, is reported back to the full house and given second reading where it is again read by number and title only. After a lapse of 24 hours, the bill is ready for third and final reading, again by title only. It is now ready for debate and voting by the full membership of the house.

In actual practice, several days, weeks or months may elapse before the bill is scheduled for floor debate. When it is debated, it faces an uncertain fate. The bill may pass routinely, or it may pass with a close vote, after heated debate, or it may fail to pass and be defeated.

Frequently, a bill is amended on the floor. In that event, the bill is returned to the second reading stage and must later be rescheduled for another third reading and another round of floor debate.

After a bill has negotiated all of the hurdles in its house of origin, it is transmitted to the other house where it must proceed in the same manner.

If the bill manages to pass both houses, it then goes to the Governor for action. The Governor may sign the bill in the form that it is presented or may suggest further changes as the condition for signing. This action is known as a conditional veto. If the Governor has strong objections to the bill, he may give it an absolute veto. In this event, the measure can become law only if both houses of the Legislature pass it by a 2/3 vote.

League Action

Throughout this legislative process, your League has been playing an active role. Letters outlining the League’s position on behalf of municipalities have been sent to the appropriate members of the Legislature at all stages—when the bill was in the original committee, soon after introduction, when it came up on the floor for debate, in the other house, if the bill moved, and ultimately to the Governor, if the bill progressed to his desk. In the course of a typical session, the League’s correspondence files grow to impressive proportions.

Many bills affecting municipalities do survive the process and become law in the average two-year session.

How does the League arrive at a position on the hundreds of bills that affect us? It does so through the efforts of the League Legislative Committee. This 100-member body reflects the broad spectrum of municipal viewpoints. Officials from all parts of the state reflect the concerns of rural communities, suburban municipalities and our larger cities. The committee also comprises a cross section of mayors, governing body members, attorneys, engineers, managers, clerks and other key local administrative officials.

Following each meeting of the committee, League staff members write an avalanche of letters outlining the positions that the committee has taken at the meeting. Usually within 48 hours, these letters are in the mail to members of the Legislature.

Officials in every municipality are also notified of the legislative committee’s findings through the familiar Legislative Bulletin which is sent to the mayor, each member of the governing body, the municipal clerk, the attorney and the manager or administrator. In addition to reporting the committee’s feelings on various bills, the Bulletin also reports on all the bills having a local impact which become law; and it carries special alerts on developments that require special action by our members. The bulletin can be accessed by clicking here.

How You Can Help

As it is in so many aspects of life, effective communications will be absolutely essential for success in the legislative arena.

As your agents in the State Capital, our six governmental affairs agents will be vigilant to potential problems and possibilities. We know that we can count on them to employ their talents, energies and expertise to protect and promote our interests and the interests of the property taxpayers, who have put their faith in us. But they will need our help.

The League is your League. It speaks on your behalf, and to be effective, it needs you to take an active part. Here are some of the things you can do to help the League help you. Read your Legislative Bulletin and file it for future reference. Establish a dialogue with your own senator and assembly members. Talk with them or write to them about the bills that will be good and bad for your town. Strongly oppose bills, which mandate new or increased services at the local level without providing state funding to support them, as well as those that decrease local tax revenue sources.

Don’t forget that you are part of the League. When you receive a special alert, follow through on it. If you do not, you may have to live with the consequences. When you receive notice of a hearing in Trenton, try to have some official in your community come to Trenton to testify. And most importantly, try to enlist the help of your citizens. As taxpayers, they are the ones who will bear the burden of costly programs mandated by the state. Encourage them to support the League position.

Remember, what happens in Trenton has a very direct bearing on your town and your programs and on your ability to serve your citizens. It is vitally important that the Legislature and the Governor be kept informed of the local viewpoint. There is a lot to be done. Work with your League and through your League, so we can get the job done together.

I urge you to read the regular “Legislative Update” column, which appears in each issue of our magazine, New Jersey Municipalities. I counsel you to scrutinize the “Legislative Bulletins,” which we publish after every meeting of our Legislative Committee. I encourage you to heed the “Legislative Alert” letters, which are sent to you, as needed, to mark the progress of important legislati
on through the law-making process.

If you would like to get more deeply involved in our legislative program, please contact Bill Dressel or another member of our Legislative Relations staff. We’d be happy to make you a member of our legislative committee, which meets monthly in the spring and in the fall. And, whenever an issue arises that would profoundly affect you and your municipality, let our legislative team know. If you would be willing to come to Trenton to testify on that issue, you could easily be the difference between success and failure.

Politics and government remain much more arts, than sciences. We’ve long since learned to expect the unexpected. We live in an age when inconveniences can, with lightening speed, bypass the problem stage and emerge as full-blown crises. In fact, it’s when our proverbial legislative radar screen reads clear that we tend to worry the most.

This year—like last year, and the year before that—promises tremendous challenges.

But we know that if enough of us involve ourselves in the League Legislative program, then our interests and the interests of our property tax paying constituents, can again be heard, and be acted upon, by our fellow public servants in the Capital.

Thank you for all your support in the past. When we continue to speak together with one voice, we continue to make this state a better place—for ourselves, for our children and for our children’s children. I sincerely look forward to working with you all this year, for a better future for our Garden State

BE A PART OF THE SOLUTION

League Action

How You Can Help