EDITORIAL
The Packet Group
Over the years, the complexion of the New Jersey Legislature has occasionally undergone some sudden and dramatic changes.
In 1967, for example, after the Supreme Court’s historic “one-man, one-vote” ruling expanded the state Senate from 21 to 40 members and the Assembly from 60 to 80, Republicans won 31 seats in the upper house and 58 in the lower, giving them iron-fisted control of the 193rd Legislature that was sworn in the following January.
Six years later, a swarm of Democrats rode Brendan Byrne’s coattails into office, capturing seats from districts that had never before deserted the Republican Party. When the 196th Legislature convened in January 1974, the Democrats enjoyed lopsided control of both the Senate (29-10-1) and Assembly (66-14).
In 1991, the backlash against Gov. Jim Florio’s package of $2.8 billion in new income and sales taxes swept a tidal wave of Republicans into office, giving the GOP veto-proof majorities in both houses of the 205th Legislature — 27-13 in the Senate, 58-22 in the Assembly.
The face of the 213th New Jersey Legislature convening in Trenton this week is again decidedly different from the one that preceded it. But this time around, the sudden and dramatic change has nothing to do with a shift in political alliances. The raw numbers of Democrats and Republicans in the Legislature is virtually unchanged.
What’s different is who those Democrats and Republicans are.
Fully one-third of the 213th Legislature — 40 of its 120 members — were not in the 212th. Fifteen new senators and 25 new Assembly members give the Legislature that will sit for the next two years a very different look from the one that deliberated so much and accomplished so little over the past two years.
Thanks to a new law, fewer of them will be dual-officeholders. Thanks to the state’s changing demographics, more of them are minorities — including the first Asian-American elected to the Senate, and the first Portuguese-American and the first Latina elected to the Assembly. And thanks to a long-overdue trend that is finally catching up to New Jersey, a record number — 34 — are women.
At 28 percent, the number of women lawmakers is still a far cry from what it could be. But it does vault New Jersey from near the bottom to close to the top of the list of states in terms of female representation in elective state office. (Interestingly, most of the states that still outdistance New Jersey in this category are in the Midwest and West: Kansas, Colorado, Nevada, California, Washington, Arizona and New Mexico. In the East, New Jersey has yet to catch up with Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut and Maryland — the nation’s leader at 34 percent.)
”A new Legislature always brings with it a sense of excitement and high expectations,” said Senate President Richard Codey (D-Essex). “With a record number of women, the changing demographics of our Legislature have created an environment ripe for change.”
We certainly hope Sen. Codey is right. The 212th Legislature did not exactly distinguish itself as an agent for change. After committing itself to solving the state’s most pressing concern — meaningful, long-term property-tax reform — it settled instead for a series of half-measures of short-term property-tax relief. Meanwhile, the state’s structural budget deficit grew, its economy stagnated, its housing became less and less affordable, its troubled cities saw no discernible improvement, its suburbs kept sprawling and congestion on its highways worsened.
What the 213th Legislature offers this week is a fresh new face. What remains to be seen over the coming weeks and months is whether the change it represents will be anything more than cosmetic.