Trenton has a hearing problem

“We’re all people, are we not? Are we not important enough to be heard?” a man asked the Senate committee that held a hearing on a bill introduced by New Jersey Senate President Nick Scutari that would gut the watchdog powers of the state comptroller.

“Could you just speak on the bill? You’re wasting your time,” snapped Sen. James Beach, the committee chair.

“I’m sure I’m wasting my time because I have the same feeling that I’ve had the past 10 years. That I’m not being heard,” the man responded.

He’s right. There was a hearing, but making sure constituents felt heard was not part of the agenda.

Even though the bill, S4924, was introduced the day before Thanksgiving and fast-tracked for a hearing, dozens of people trekked to Trenton to speak out against another nail in the coffin of government accountability. Almost all of them were treated with disdain.

“I don’t care about you,” Beach told one person.

“Why do you think you’re special? You’re not,” he snarled at U.S. Sen. Andy Kim.

Kim isn’t special, but he, like all other constituents, deserved respect and equal treatment. Kim was kept waiting for hours, and his time to speak was limited to three minutes because he opposed the bill, while those who supported it were allowed to speak at length early in the hearing. Attorney General Matt Platkin aptly called it a “textbook First Amendment violation of viewpoint discrimination.”

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It was especially ironic that Beach kept Kim and other public officials who are on the public payroll waiting for nearly five hours to testify about a bill that Scutari claims is about efficiency and not his desire to further gut government accountability. Kim ended up missing votes in D.C. — Beach’s pettiness not only wasted taxpayer money, but deprived New Jerseyans of representation in the U.S. Senate.

Committee meetings are important forums where stakeholders provide valuable information about how legislation would personally impact them or the communities they serve. But it’s increasingly obvious that committee hearings have become what Senator Declan O’Scanlon has called “the rubber-stamp system.” 

Some lawmakers were on their phones much of the meeting. Sen. James Holzapfel didn’t bother to stay and left his “yes” vote behind.

Senator Shirley Turner wasn’t present and Senator John Burzichelli took her seat. Although her office said she was at a retreat, apparently it’s common practice to swap out legislators who plan to vote no in committee with those who are willing to vote yes. Indeed, when the Legislature gutted OPRA last year, Senator Gordon Johnson was swapped out of the committee the morning of the meeting as he was driving to Trenton for the hearing, and was replaced with Senator John McKeon, who voted yes. 

McKeon also serves on the committee that heard the bill that would muzzle the comptroller. He voted to release the bill from committee, despite saying there were changes that must happen before he would vote yes on the floor. Later, he said he voted yes “out of respect for the bill’s sponsor and consistent with the legislative process.” He was not the only one to take that path — so did Senator Vincent Polistina.

These lawmakers, like most others, have defeated the entire point of committees. Committees exist to scrutinize legislation, gather input from stakeholders, and correct flaws before a bill reaches the floor. If a bill isn’t in a condition that a committee member would support on the floor, it should not advance out of committee. Instead, the sponsor should revise the bill to address concerns or at least bring it to a point where a majority of the committee finds it acceptable. That is the “legislative process” that lawmakers like McKeon should follow.

Lawmakers must serve the public, not each other. Flawed legislation should not pass through a committee as a courtesy to the sponsor or because the sponsor is a bully. This tradition must stop.

Whatever you think about the merits of the bill or the intentions behind it, we should all agree that the process stinks. New Jerseyans deserve better.