Democratic gubernatorial candidate Steve Fulop today proposed a series of sweeping changes aimed at strengthening Democracy and offering substantive government reform, promising to regulate ethics reform for county political party chairs, “more robust” lobbying disclosures, mandated legislative transparency that includes a two-week waiting time between the release of the state budget and a vote by the legislature.
“Faith in our state government has eroded over the last several years, a direct result of legislators and elected officials taking repeated steps to undermine the public trust,” said Fulop. “Whether it’s rolling back campaign finance laws, making it more difficult for the public to obtain government records, or fighting to hold on to a corrupt ‘county line’ election system, Trenton has repeatedly demonstrated that its priority is pleasing power brokers over the public good.”
His proposal directly addresses the need for conflict-of-interest reform for political party chairs, alleging that some county chairs are “assuming the role of lobbyists and profiting off their trusted positions.”
“Compounding the problem, New Jersey party chairs have had a disproportionate influence over county commissioners and state legislators – meaning there is no check on this practice,” Fulop said. “The result is a direct connection between some of the chair’s personal interests and suspect legislation that has been proposed or fast-tracked.”
Fulop, a three-term Jersey City mayor alleged “a clear ethical conflict where many of these Democratic party chairs/lobbyists assume clients who are in direct conflict to the core democratic principles they espouse to voters.”
“The conclusion is that they are either lying to their clients or lying to the public,” he said.
While proposing increased access to ballot initiatives at the local level, Fulop said he was open to expanding initiative and referendum to the state level.
“When I was on the city council and mayor, there were a lot of things that we wanted to get changed that we thought were difficult for the legislature to demonstrate and where they weren’t sympathetic to us,” said Fulop. “What we realized was there just wasn’t a mechanism in New Jersey to get that accomplished, so I think that there should be somewhere in between New Jersey and California on how this works with the opportunity for the public to weigh in when the legislature isn’t doing the right things.”
Fulop also committed to taking another look at the recent changes to New Jersey’s Open Public Records Act, saying he might “roll it back.”
New elements of Fulop’s platform include eliminating the April school board and May non-partisan municipal elections to November, contests he says are “costly and suppress voter turnout.” He wants to overhaul the Election Transparency Act, update – including a ten-year look-back, updated financial disclosure forms, tighten rules to prevent unregistered lobbyists who operate as public relations advisors, and term limits at all government levels.
As governor, Fulop would push for ranked choice voting and same-day voter registration.
Fulop also wants to centralize election management by ending a system that allows each of the 21 counties to run their own elections, open access to candidate petitions, and use computer randomization software to draw ballot positions.
He wants the legislature to finalize a state budget by June 1 – that would mean before a legislative primary election — with significant but unstated penalties for not doing so, and wants a 14-days to go by between a public release of a budget and a vote, with a hearing during that period.
“This would prevent lawmakers from waiting until the last minute to finalize and vote on a budget bill that they may or may not have read,” Fulop said. “This would allow policy experts and members of the public to analyze and provide testimony on the full budget.”
He also won’t sign bills unless the public had full access to them in final form for 72 hours preceding the vote.
“Too often, multi-page bills with significant implications are pushed through the legislature without time for public comment or even for the legislators to read the bill,” he said.
Fulop said that good “government leads to more efficiency and ensures that elected officials prioritize their constituents over their own interests.”
“When the government works on behalf of the people, it works for the people, resulting in policies that improve transportation, housing, education, healthcare, economic development, and affordability,” he stated.
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