Senatorial Discourtesy

They’re at it again, Save Jerseyans, and Senator Bob Gordon (D-38) should be ashamed of himself.

A little background: in 2011, the voters of Princeton Township and Princeton Borough passed a voter referendum and merged together in order to consolidate services and, ideally, achieve property tax relief as a result.

State Senator Bob Gordon (D-38)

One complication associated with merging municipalities in New Jersey is an outdated law requiring towns to immediately assume the initial “start-up” costs of consolidation. As a result, consolidation becomes unnecessarily and prohibitively expensive. It’s a huge disincentive for cash-strapped towns particularly in a bad economy.

Senator Kip Bateman (R-16) introduced S-3146 to fix the problem in December 2011. But as is often the case in the Democrat-controlled chamber, Bateman’s legislation stalled without even a committee hearing let alone a floor vote. Undeterred, Bateman re-introduced the bill on January 17, 2012 as S-910.

Then “senatorial discourtesy” reared its ugly head. It occurs when the majority party kills, co-opts and then plagiarizes legislation originally conceived by the minority party. New Jersey Democrats excel at this underhanded tactic and we’ve covered it extensively in the past.

In this instant case, Gordon introduced a virtually identical bill to Bateman’s proposal, labeled S-1114, which was subsequently scheduled for a committee hearing on February 27th.

I get it, Save Jerseyans. It’s called politics, and you’d be a fool to expect anything else from an institution run by a guy who admits voting based on solely political calculations.

That doesn’t mean taxpayers should like it or accept it, either, especially from a double-talking politician like Gordon who voted AGAINST pension and benefit reform. Do you think he’s really interested in helping taxpayers with such a distressingly inconsistent record under his belt? Or is a decidedly less admirable motivation at work here?

 

Matt Rooney
About Matt Rooney 8405 Articles
MATT ROONEY is SaveJersey.com's founder and editor-in-chief, a practicing New Jersey attorney, and the host of 'The Matt Rooney Show' on 1210 WPHT every Sunday evening from 7-10PM EST.

4 Comments

  1. As a point of info, the Princetons already had a regional school district, and since the biggest chunk of the property tax bill is education, this merger will prove to be more fluff than substance.

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