| Over the past few weeks Blue Jersey has been focused on pushing the legislature to pass a true marriage equality bill instead of civil unions. Newspaper polls show well over 40 percent support for same-sex marriage and overwhelming support for civil unions. The Garden State Equality Poll poll put the numbers even higher.
Many legislators have come out in support of marriage equality, and lament the fact that they don't have the ability to vote on it. The saddest thing is that the Senate Judiciary committee vice chair Sen. John Girgenti (D-Passiac) and chair Sen. John Adler (D-Camden) both said they wanted to go further.
Last thing I heard was that the Chair got to decide what bills come up in committee, and when votes are held. But the two most powerful members of the committee, along with some others, wanted marriage equality but went for civil unions instead.
And now we get to what the marriage Equality fight and the Property Tax Reform Fight have in common -- the legislators know what is the right thing to do for the people of New Jersey yet are unwilling to do it. They are more worried about the public outcry from a minority than with doing what is right.
And that's not a terrible thing most of the time, since more often than not we don't want huge changes. If the legislature was constantly making huge changes we'd be unable to figure out the rules, businesses would want to go elsewhere, and the state would be a mess.
For property taxes there is not a consensus on what to do in order to change the structure of our governments (local, school, county, state, etc.) to make a change, and so a Constitutional Convention is necessary. A group of serious people who will not face the electorate again to keep their jobs can study the problem and come up with a comprehensive solution.
But for ME all they have to do is bite the bullet and vote the way they already know is right. They appear to have the votes, they have the mandate from the Supreme Court, and the public is at worst not all that opposed and at best very supportive.
So they should pass out two bills: first, one that guarantees equal marriage rights for same- and opposite-sex couples; second, one that creates a Constitutional Convention to fix out governmental structures and reduce the tax burden. |
