Good and bad seen in past year
The New Jersey Legislature has ended its year with what can only be described as a mixed record.
There was the good: The Legislature acted boldly, approving a measure that will appropriate $270 million to build and equip five stem-cell and biomedical research facilities around the state. This legislation signed into law on Wednesday by Gov. Jon Corzine could make New Jersey a leader in the research of treatments and development of cures for some of the world’s most tragic diseases. Barring a dramatic change in federal policy regarding embryonic stem-cell research an unlikely prospect in the remaining two years of George W. Bush’s presidency New Jersey is now positioned to join California in the forefront of this vitally important effort.
The state also strengthened its anti-discrimination statute, adding "gender identity or expression" to the list of protected characteristics and ended the long infamy of being the only state in the nation that did not allow needle-exchange programs (both bills were signed into law this month).
And the bad: Tax, pension and ethics reforms seem to have stalled with lawmakers steadily retreating from the ambitious agenda they laid out for themselves at the start of the year. And as 2007, a legislative election year, looms ever larger on the horizon, the chances of meaningful progress on these and other substantive issues grow slimmer and slimmer.
Somewhere in between lies the civil-union legislation signed by the governor on Thursday. The legislation, crafted swiftly in response to the state Supreme Court’s November ruling on gay marriage, allows same-sex partners to enter into civil unions that afford them the same due process and equal protection guarantees enjoyed by married couples. The measure, however, stops short of calling such unions marriage a decision that creates a separate-but-equal status under the law that should be unacceptable to all of us.
While it falls short, it is a start especially when you consider that the Legislature has a woeful track record of meeting court-imposed timetables like the six-month deadline imposed in the November decision. (It is still wrestling with a 16-year-old school funding decision.)
We’re hoping the Legislature’s track record is better in 2007 and that it enacts real tax reform that results in streamlined government and a reduced reliance on the property tax, an end to pension abuses and revisits the issue of same-sex marriage.
Given that it is an election year, however, we’re not all that optimistic.

