The idea that there is too much politics in Trenton has been around for so long, it has become a cliché. The familiar bugaboos of partisanship and petty rivalries disrupting the legislative process are well known and well despised.
The jockeying for power, position and prestige, both for the parties and for individual lawmakers, are worn concepts for those following the New Jersey Statehouse, but represent very real frustrations for legislators trying to advance their agendas.
A quick perusal of almost any legislator’s record will reveal that the vast majority of bills proposed never make it out of committee, let alone onto the floor and the governor’s desk. Lawmakers, both Republicans and Democrats, cite inter- and intra-party feuding, leadership opposition, and the constant drive to raise funds as things that get in the way of what they believe they were elected to do.
“I know this sounds very ‘Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,’ but let me tell you something: Trenton’s not working. This isn’t working, and it’s not just the Democrats; it wasn’t working when the Republicans were in [the majority] either,” said Assemblyman Bill Baroni (R- Middlesex- Mercer).
Power of the leadership
Virtually everyone spoken to for this story agrees that a big problem in the culture of the Legislature is the immense power concentrated in the hands of the General Assembly speaker and the president of the Senate.
Civics classes often discuss how a bill becomes a law. First, legislation is drafted. Then it goes to committee. When it’s worked out there, it goes to the floor for a vote and, if it passes, goes to the executive’s desk and is signed or vetoed. A gap in this chain of events, however, is where the top legislative leadership comes in. It is this leadership, according to lawmakers, that has the power of life and death over almost any bill.
“If the leadership’s behind it, you’ll get it. [And if it’s not], it will go nowhere,” said former Republican Assemblyman Joe Azzolina (R-Monmouth-Middlesex), who served in the Legislature on and off beginning in the late 1960s.
The legislative leadership’s formal powers allow it to decide what does and does not go to the floor for a vote, meaning that even if something clears committee, the bill must still pass the hurdle of either the speaker or the president. Azzolina said that the actual process involves the committee chairs deciding what bills go up to the majority leader, who then either puts it on the agenda for a floor vote or asks to withdraw it from consideration. The power of these individuals must be taken into consideration for every bill.
“The presiding officer for each house determines the agenda for each meeting, and if the presiding officer does not favor what you are doing, it is very unlikely that your bill will be put on the agenda to be considered,” said Assemblyman John Wisniewski (D- Middlesex). “The presiding officer in each house is really absolute in their authority.”
Grassroots efforts to gain leadership support are possible, but difficult, and even that cannot bypass the technical powers afforded to the legislative leadership.
“You can also do something, if they’re skeptical: you can take your bill and try to get 50 co-sponsorships on it, and then they’re going to realize it couldn’t be ignored,” said Assemblywoman Linda Greenstein (D- Middlesex-Mercer).
Although she said that while there are opportunities to work with the leadership, the power is still concentrated there. She and Baroni both expressed a desire to see a more diffuse distribution of influence in the Legislature, with more say on what is and isn’t on the agenda in the hands of other lawmakers.
Party politics
Compounding the difficulties inherent in winning over the legislative leadership is simple party affiliation, which can mean feast or famine depending on when one comes into the Legislature.
“The general overview of my thinking [is that] there is a dramatic difference between the number of bills brought to the floor between Democrats and Republicans,” said Assemblywoman Amy Handlin (R- Middlesex-Monmouth). “Too often, bills are judged not on their merit but whether the sponsor was a Republican or Democrat.”
Handlin said that there will sometimes be two sets of bills focusing on the same topic, with similar wording and function, and that the bill that will pass is the one constructed by the majority party.
Azzolina said that this is a common practice, illustrating the phenomenon by saying that he had crafted an anti-bullying bill that never came up for a vote.
“I asked, and asked, and asked, and they kept telling me, ‘We’ll see,’ ” said Azzolina. He went on to say that another legislator from the majority party took the bill, changed the wording, and managed to get it passed.
“So the only way for me to get any credit was to go on as a co-sponsor and she got all the credit and when [then- Gov. Jim] McGreevey got up and signed the bill, they made a big to-do, and I was just one of the guys standing there with the legislators who were the lead sponsors.”
Azzolina was quick to point out, though, that this problem is systemic in nature and not particular to any one party.
“It happens with whoever is in the majority. Come on, we were no angels either. [But] that’s the way it works,” he said.
Baroni spoke at length about what legislators can do to advance their agendas when they’re in the minority party. Acknowledging that it is difficult for a Republican lawmaker to advance bills in a Democrat-majority Assembly, he said that building alliances and coalitions is especially important. He said that he has co-sponsored countless bills with this in mind. If a lawmaker really cares about his district, he said, they will support and fight for measures they think are in the public interest, regardless of whether one will get more or less credit.
“The big thing is to put credit aside and realize what the most important things are,” said Baroni. “It’s not an excuse to say, ‘Well, the other party controls things.’ I say, ‘Go to work,’ and that’s what we’ve done. That’s why I’ve done so many co-sponsorships.”
Handlin pointed out that broad, bipartisan efforts do exist in the Legislature. As an example, she pointed out her work with the Fair and Clean Elections Program, which was developed with input from both major parties, as well as her work with Greenstein in crafting a bus safety bill, an issue that interested them both. She also said that she was selected by the speaker to attend a special program for state legislators from all over the country, pointing out that he had no obligation to select a Republican.
“The message I took away from it was [that] my contributions matter, and I’ve made a difference. The leadership has taken notice, despite my party affiliation and despite my being brand new,” said Handlin.
Tactics
Communication and compromise, to lawmakers, are the cornerstones of being an effective legislator, because it is only through these traits that one can navigate the myriad interests outside the Statehouse that have a stake in what goes on inside of it.
“I think if you’re looking for a universal aphorism for how one goes about getting a lot of legislation done, it’s about communication. Just talking to people” said Wisniewski.
Lawmakers say this generally means bringing in the right groups to get their perspective and being willing to bend on certain points to win alliances. It was generally agreed by lawmakers that no one wins friends and influences people by being stubborn, either with legislators or with constituents.
“If you’re dogmatic, if you say, ‘This is my idea and this is the way it’s going to be,’ you tend not to be successful, since the legislative process is really a process of compromise,” said Wisniewski.
And there are many compromises that need to be made with almost any piece of legislation – with other legislators, with interest groups, and with other branches of the government.
Azzolina pointed out that this goes both ways: if interest groups want help from a legislator, they need to be willing to compromise as well. He contrasted his experiences with the business and industrial groups with that of the environmental groups. He said that environmentalists are difficult because they often refuse to compromise.
“They would never endorse me, because I never went 100 percent with them, I would only go 80 or 85,” said Azzolina.
When asked how powerful the lobbies were in the Statehouse, Azzolina said that it depends on how well organized the lobby in question is.
Wisniewski agreed, saying that there is a lobby for every issue, and how much say they have in the legislative process depends on how much information they can bring to the table. Hearing them out, he said, is a very important part of the process.
“In the press, the term ‘lobbyist’ is considered a pejorative. It’s a nasty term, it’s an ugly term; no one wants to be a lobbyist and no one wants to be seen talking to one, because somehow there’s a taint to that. The fact of the matter is that none of us who want to come to the Legislature are experts in all fields, and when we propose legislation, we need to keep in mind that there are people out there who have expertise in these fields, and those are, generally, lobbyists,” said Wisniewski.
According to Baroni, a very powerful interest group in the Legislature is the Legislature itself, in the form of the party leadership committees.
“You have the legislative leadership committee PACs in New Jersey, they then fund the campaigns in the targeted districts, so the members who get to Trenton who were elected in those districts, they owe complete loyalty to the leadership,” said Baroni.
While building coalitions is a huge part of the process, Greenstein also said it is important to retain control of legislation once it is proposed. She said that she is often frustrated because she likes crafting legislation through careful analysis of the relevant issues, which sometimes leads to other legislators posting similar bills while she is still deliberating.
“You hold a hearing, you bring in the world’s best speakers, and five other legislators start putting bills up. It doesn’t always happen, but that’s a particular frustration,” said Greenstein.
Even on the same bill, she said, sometimes there are so many legislators working on it that it begins to lose momentum, bogging the whole process down.
Sheer quantity of legislation passed, it was generally agreed, is a large part of one’s success as a legislator, but not the only one.
Handlin pointed to her actions regarding drinking at the PNC Bank Arts Center as a positive result. Wisniewski said that a legislator can also act as a guide for constituents in need of assistance. Other legislators pointed to similar examples.
Systemic problems
Regardless of what each legislator finds troubling about their experiences in the Statehouse, all agreed that the problems aren’t particular to one party or another. Rather, they are embedded in the culture of the Legislature itself. Azzolina said that today’s Legislature is certainly different from the one he entered when he first came to Trenton.
“The quality of legislators when I first came in was entirely different than the quality of legislators today. Their word was their bond. Today, it’s not so – not with everyone, a lot of them are still OK, but there was a lot more mutual respect. Let’s say most of them were more honorable,” said Azzolina.
Baroni said that many problems in Trenton will not be solved unless more districts become competitive, or unless term limits are installed. Many times, he said, people and ideas become entrenched in the Legislature as a result of longevity. These entrenchments, he said, can make genuinely reform much more difficult.
“I’m not saying we can change the system overnight, but we need more reformers in both parties, not just reforming property taxes or corruption, but the system of Trenton,” said Baroni.