Voting Day Under the Gold Dome: Highs and Lows

The final day of a NJ legislative session is a lot like a term paper deadline in an undergraduate survey course. For one day, several dozen procrastinating "social drinkers" who are trying to get into bed with anyone worth bragging about, do their best to convince somebody that they've actually been working for the past six months.

Fortunately, this year nobody demanded an extension.

The $33.5 billion dollar state budget is now on its way to the governor's desk along with a slew of other legislation, and with that under our belts we lowly members of the State Governmental Affairs Desk here at CentralNJ Politics will now dutifully supply you, our faithful reader(s), with a run-down of the highs and lows of this year's final day of voting.

Please bear with us. It's been a long day of number-crunching and vote-counting, and we are understaffed, overdrugged and were expecting all this budget business to come closer to June 30. Looks like the pre-budget vote cocktail hour (week) wasn't as well-timed as we might have thought. Ah well, keep easy.

Campaign talking point high: The legistature put through the budget on time, with more than 50% less pork and without any tax increases. Although the voting was split along party lines (according to PoliticsNJ.com 22-15 in the Senate and 50-3 in the Assembly, you didn't think we really wasted out time counting votes, that's for interns!) both the Dems and the GOP got something they could run with. The Democrats have a budget with over $100 million less pork, passed on time and with no new taxes. The GOP has a $2.7 billion spending increase and a still staggering disputed figure in the $100 million range in christmas tree spending.

Pension funding low: The nearly $1 billion set aside in this year's budget for the state workers' pension fund still doesn't make up for years of robbing the pension coffers. The Legislature only postponed a fight down the road over how to keep the pension system tenable. This was one, among many, band-aid appropriations, especially considering that the pension system is currently running with an estimated $25 billion in unfunded liability, with a federal probe set to investigate.

Rabner approved, ok: No big opinion on this. We're just glad Nia Gill now looks like a backstabbing wannabe.

Garden State Green Space, nice buzz, for now: The Senate approved an appropriation of $200 million for the Garden State Preservation Trust, according to the Trenton Times. While the cash now will keep the trust in the black for the present (their funding was set to expire at the end of the year), it's another band-aid measure that still leaves the long-term future of the trust in the air. With the development and over-development occurring across the state, the environmental impact of population increases and development needs to be taken seriously. Which takes us to...

Grass is greener in NJ! Well, by 2050 hopefully: The Legislature approved a dramatic greenhouse gas emissions and environmental stewardship bill that has the farthest reaching plans in the country, according to the NY Times, who wrote: "Under the new law, greenhouse gas emissions generated by every aspect of the state’s economy, not just electricity-generating stations, will have to drop about 13 percent, to 1990 levels, by 2020. The bill further requires that emissions be capped at 80 percent of 2006’s levels by 2050.

"A few other states have set emissions reduction goals, but none go as far into the future as New Jersey’s. California, which passed a similar law earlier this year that was widely considered the toughest in the country, extends only to 2020."

Corzine is ready to sign, but questions have still been raised on the bill's implementation. Enforcement will fall to the Department of Environmental Protection, who do not currently have a plan for meeting these targeted goals, the Times reports.

Sorry for the lengthy greeny treatise, reality check "let us get cancer!" low: A bill making the smoking ban comprehensive in New Jersey, including in the Atlantic City casinos was passed yesterday, according to several sources. Despite the Govermental Affairs Desk's unblemished record of supporting public health initiatives even when in direct confrontation with some of its members' personal, ahem, discretions, we are going out on a limb to call this one a "Low" today. There is nothing like a cool drag after dropping the rent check on a misplayed double-down at 4 a.m. in the Tropicana. Can't their be an exemption for the born loser?