About these statistics
Staff members at Greater Media Newspapers recently studied the legislative records of each lawmaker in our coverage area for the 2006-07 legislative session. All figures were current as of Aug. 5, while the Legislature was on summer recess.
The New Jersey Legislature’s Web site was used to chart the success of each piece of legislation for which the lawmakers in question were prime sponsors. Senate bills passed into the Assembly and vice versa were not counted – only bills that originated in the lawmaker’s native chamber.
Some bills were drafted but were never introduced on the floor, which explains why some legislators’ total number of bills doesn’t equal the sum of their bills that were introduced, passed the floor or became law. For example, some legislators have drafted bills this summer, but could not introduce them until the Legislature meets again in the fall.
We categorized the bills by which benchmark they managed to clear: being introduced, passing a floor vote and being signed into law.
Introduction means that the bill is either still in committee, was in committee but was removed from consideration, was introduced but was later merged or replaced with another bill, or has cleared committee and is in its second reading.
A passing floor vote is exactly what it sounds like. Bills filed in this category were, at least once, put to a vote by the Assembly or Senate and passed. Successful voice votes are also filed under this category, as are bills that passed the floor but were vetoed by the governor.
Being signed into law is self-explanatory. Bills filed under this category have been through the legislative process and were signed into law by the governor.
– All data compiled by Chris Gaetano,
Lauren Piro, John Sutton, Karl Vilacoba.