Democrats have attacked the GOP budget bill that President Trump signed on July 4 — but New Jersey Dems’ budget is also unjust. (Dana DiFilippo | New Jersey Monitor)
By Matt Dragon
While a lot of the focus has been on the chaos in Washington, DC over the tax bill that would represent the largest transfer of wealth to the ultra-wealthy in our history, New Jersey’s legislators and Gov. Phil Murphy are responsible for an equally unjust budget, written largely out of the public eye.
It’s easy to see why so many voters sit out elections, or say they don’t see the difference in their lives regardless of election outcome, when we see parallel stories playing out in Democratic-controlled New Jersey and in Republican-controlled D.C. The budget process in Trenton has long been criticized as “three white dudes in a room,” which needs to be addressed head-on. But it also doesn’t seem to yield very good results, with rushed votes right before the deadline, and multiple recent instances of “clean-up bills” needed to fix up mistakes no one had a chance to notice before the fast-tracked passage to meet the deadline.
In the few days before the vote, as the actual shape of the state’s new budget became apparent, there were several red flags. The affordable housing trust fund is being raided to plug holes elsewhere in the budget, continuing a long line of one-off budget “fixes” at the expense of much-needed programs. What could have been a moment of real celebration with the passage of a mansion tax to create a more equitable tax system has instead been undermined, potentially leaving affordable housing in New Jersey worse off than it started.
It’s not just the public that’s kept in the dark. Even Attorney General Matt Platkin, with whom I have my own disagreements, was shocked to find out that $45 million from the state’s share of the national opioid settlement was being diverted to four major hospital chains in the state. One of those hospital chains, RWJBarnabas Health, will receive $15 million, which definitely has nothing to do with the fact that longtime Murphy chief of staff, limited-time-only U.S. senator from New Jersey George Helmy fell into a high paying role at the health care giant when he departed the Murphy administration in 2023. A very Jersey career arc, but this simply isn’t how functional governments govern.
Unfortunately, New Jersey’s new budget and its process, cloaked in secrecy, intentionally devoid of meaningful public input, and inarguably rushed, is nothing new, nor limited to budget bills. In 2020, a bill to allow Horizon to convert to a for-profit entity was introduced in the last few days of the lame duck session before the end-of-year Legislative holiday. Horizon is the largest health insurer in New Jersey and the health insurance provider for the State Health Benefits Plan offered to state employees (also an option for municipal and county workforces). That bill was moved through committee with amendments that the public had never seen — and let’s be honest, the legislators probably never read them either.
Surprising no one, after the restructuring was approved, Horizon jacked up state plan premiums more than 20%, despite its new, “more competitive” for-profit form. In the three years after the misguided bill was rushed through the Legislature without transparency, Horizon paid out $35 million in bonuses, with just under $13 million going to the new CEO.
Flash forward to this year, and the governor and legislators have a plan to take $100 million from public employees. We could cover 10% of the $100 million in desired savings just from one Horizon executive’s bonus. Are our teachers, firefighters, and snow-plow operators getting bonuses like that?
To add insult to injury, the Horizon board has been a rotating clown car of former state legislators, which seems to have done nothing to protect the state’s or their former constituents’ interests.
The system is clearly broken, but the challenge is getting those who broke it — and benefit from its brokenness — to fix it. While voters are effectively locked out of the process, every state Assembly member and senator has the power to force change. It’s not about party, it’s about whether you were elected to represent — or to rule over.
So our legislators need to learn:
If you’re representing us, you can’t vote bills out of committee that we’ve never seen.
If you’re representing our best interests, you can’t vote bills out of committee that exist only as a few bullets on a napkin.
If you’re representing the people, you actually have to engage with and listen to those people, and you have to do that before you decide how to vote.
They need to slow things down and:
Hold actual public hearings, where you don’t give priority to retired lawmakers, and instead prioritize testimony from the actual public, not professional lobbyists.
Make those public hearings accessible, as most people can’t drive to Trenton and spend six hours sitting around waiting to testify during working hours.
Refuse to vote on things that weren’t on public committee agendas for at least a week before the hearing.
Refuse to vote on amendments that haven’t been released publicly for at least 72 hours.
Work with the legislative and technology offices to ensure that full bill text and amendment text are actually public on the New Jersey Legislature site before bills come before committees.
Your chamber leaders will hate you, your committee chairs will despise you, but voters will support you. You have to reestablish trust, or election turnouts will continue to dwindle and more and more residents will, rightfully, feel like they’re on the outside, and that you’re not interested in representing them. Your chamber and committee leadership are not your bosses; your constituents are.
Matt Dragon lives in West Orange with his wife and daughter. His advocacy focuses on police accountability, equity issues, and civic engagement.
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