By Christopher Binetti

Most people do not vote in off-year General Assembly elections and even in gubernatorial election years, less than half of registered voters vote for the Legislature. There just is not enough media coverage of state legislative elections. Also, there are too many safe Democratic and Republican districts.

Moreover, many New Jerseyans do not know much about state and local government, which as a political scientist and political theorist who teaches state and local politics, I am quite aware.

Most young people, in particular, do not take statewide elections seriously, unaware of the fact that most important laws in their daily lives are state laws.

The lack of public participation is a huge problem in New Jersey; however, the lack of political community media is another big problem.

The New Jersey State Legislature passed a community media bill and the governor signed it, but then Gov. Murphy froze most or all of the money. There is just not enough media covering state and local politics to be fair. It makes me long for the days of the Fairness Doctrine on national radio.

The most urgent political reforms might seem to harm the Democratic Party, my party, but I think that this is not true in the long run. The Republicans are starting to gain ground in South Jersey. We do not want the South Jerseyans to go back to wanting their own state like they used to talk about when I was a kid. We cannot have a regional divide in our state based on party -- that would be horrible. The Democratic Party only has statewide legitimacy if it is doing well statewide.

My proposed political reforms are two-fold in objective. One is to increase the information that prospective voters get. The other is to try to increase the number of people who are effectively represented by state government. The ultimate goal is to create a stronger more inclusive and diverse state government and a stronger, more inclusive and diverse Democratic Party.

The first major proposed reform would make it harder to just stuff referendum questions on the ballot after that idea is defeated in the Legislature, like the recreational marijuana legalization bill. There must be a public campaign to convey that the bill was defeated in the senate (there was no vote, but it was truly defeated) and that this is a work-around the elected representatives’ will.

We are not supposed to be having enabling referenda in this state, only referenda that affirm or block decisions by the State Legislature that could endanger the public welfare. The Legislature opposed a referendum to affirm the marijuana bill when it looked like it would pass, it must explain to us why this type of referendum is constitutional, let alone desirable.

The second proposed reform would be that every state legislator be required to have a website where she or he explains her or his votes on all major legislation, proposed and passed. If that seems too restrictive, the General Assembly and Senate themselves could publish in a clear website, accessible all seven days of the week (the government website is usually not accessible on Sundays) that explains in plain English what is being talked about and what is likely to be passed into law.

For example, most of us had no idea that the Legislature was criminalizing wage and hour violations, including allowing for employers to be thrown in jail for up to 18 months for accidentally failing to pay their employees their full wages three times in a six-year period. It is law now, being enforced starting this month. Yet, no one knew that this law was even being considered. We should have a right to know when major election that creates new crimes or civil causes of action, or greatly expands them, are being seriously considered. A third idea is to actually fund the community media bill. We need more media, from every ideological and demographic perspective, covering New Jerseyan politics.

The last and most important proposal that I will proffer here is that we get rid of closed primaries. Our primaries are in June, which is outrageous for many reasons. However, most importantly, few people vote in closed primaries because many people do not want to register as either Democrats or Republicans. By creating open primaries, where at least independents could vote in primaries, you deradicalize the primary contests and thus you get less extreme nominees, which leads to less extreme incumbents. Right now, if you vote in Democratic primary, it is hard to get a true liberal -- you get stuck with progressives.

In sum, open, competitive primaries and more information for voters will open up this closed mostly-one party state government, even though it is the party that I happen to like better.

Dr. Christopher Binetti is a political scientist, political theorist, and historian and adjunct professor at Middlesex County College in Edison.

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