Governor Phil Murphy signed the “Election Transparency Act” on Monday, upending Garden State campaign finance law and granting himself broad new powers heading into an important election cycle.
Republican leaders marked the occasion by voicing their strident opposition.
“Governor Murphy knows that his Democrats in the legislature are in serious trouble this November and signing this last-ditch piece of legislation is his only way out,” said NJGOP Chairman Bob Hugin. ”Not only will this so-called ‘Transparency’ Act in-kind hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign fines back to the three largest Democratic state committees before Election Day, it will also give Murphy veto power over one of the state’s last independent agencies. Mark our words: Phil Murphy and the Democrats’ greed and hubris will be their undoing this November.”
“There’s nothing transparent about the Elections Transparency Act,” said State Senator Anthony Bucco (R-25), the caucus’s choice to succeed Steven Oroho as leader in January. “The bill that Governor Murphy signed into law today takes a system that everyone trusts that has been in place for years and turns it on its head. Now that the governor has full control over ELEC and can stack the deck, the agency’s reputation as a fair and independent campaign watchdog is in serious jeopardy. People will suspect that every action taken by ELEC is politically motivated.”
The GOP legislative coalition nevertheless failed to put forth an entirely united front in opposition. Eight Republican legislators across four districts – including two considered battlegrounds – voted for the bill: Kevin Rooney of LD39, DiAnne Gove of LD9, and the entire delegations LD2 (Vince Polistina, Don Guardian and Claire Swift) and LD8 (Jean Stanfield, Michael Torrissi and Brandon Umba).
