PACKET EDITORIAL, Dec. 9
By: Packet Editorial
Did you ever notice how often an entire body of politicians like, oh, say, the Legislature readily agrees that something needs to be done about a severe problem like, oh, say, ethics, or, oh, say, the Transportation Trust Fund yet somehow manages to construct a scenario that allows everyone to speak out forcefully in support of reform without ever taking a vote to implement it?
Some legislative observers have termed this phenomenon Constructive Decision Avoidance CDA, for short and note that Congress has it down to a science. That’s because Congress can attach unpopular (and unrelated) riders to popular reform bills, allowing everyone to vote in favor of the reform in an earlier version but against the final bill (or, better yet, allow the bill to die at the end of the session without a vote) because of the unpopular amendment.
In state legislatures like, oh, say, New Jersey’s CDA is a little dicier. The state constitution requires that all bills and resolutions acted on by the New Jersey Legislature deal with a single subject, thus ruling out the unpopular, unrelated rider gambit. So what the New Jersey Legislature does is attach unpopular, related riders to the reform bill; then, the two parties engage in a pitched public-relations battle over who is to blame for standing in the way of reform, while, privately, they chortle over their extraordinary talent for maintaining the status quo.
This fall, the dominant theme in closely contested state Senate and Assembly races was ethics in particular, the cozy relationship between legislators and special interests perpetuated by the so-called "pay-to-play" system. This practice, widespread in both parties, involves the dispensation of large campaign contributions by construction companies, engineering firms, lawyers, consultants and other enterprises that do business with the state to favored legislative candidates who, upon election, return the favor by ensuring that these businesses continue to get lucrative state contracts.
Every candidate for every seat in the Legislature vigorously opposed pay-to-play during the campaign, and pledged to wipe it out after the election. So here it is, after the election, and the two parties are busy trying to outdo each other concocting the toughest, most comprehensive pay-to-play reform package anywhere in the free world. The trouble is, with each additional layer of reform extending the ban on pay-to-play to every regulated industry and all its employees, then to all candidates for county office, then to all municipal and school board candidates more and more complications (and opponents) arise. Groups that favor the overall effort start finding individual components of it unpalatable. Pretty soon, the whole package gets so complicated, with so many groups disaffected, the momentum for reform is lost and it’s back to business as usual.
Same with the Transportation Trust Fund. Everybody knows it’s going broke. And everybody, including a blue-ribbon panel appointed by the governor, knows the best way to fix it is to raise the gasoline tax now the fourth lowest in the nation. But the proposal being bandied about in the lame-duck session of the Legislature is to take only a portion of the money raised by a hike in the gasoline tax to replenish the Transportation Trust Fund, and use the rest to get rid of tolls on the Garden State Parkway. This may or may not be a good idea in the long run, but for the moment it is merely a delaying tactic a complicated, dubious initiative attached to an otherwise good idea that makes it less attractive. This, in turn, makes it easier to avoid having to make a decision.
And that, in a nutshell, is CDA, New Jersey-style. For the next couple of weeks, an exhibition of this time-tested exercise of democracy in action will remain on display in the corridors of the State House. Don’t miss it. You can be sure our legislators and their lobbyist friends won’t.