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Those hoping to have their marijuana convictions cleared will have to keep waiting.

The state Senate did not vote on Gov. Phil Murphy’s changes to its expungement legislation on Thursday but instead introduced a new bill of its own.

Senators Sandra Cunningham, D-Hudson, and Teresa Ruiz, D-Essex, along with Senate President Stephen Sweeney announced Thursday afternoon they had introduced new legislation to expand expungement. It proposes reforms to expungement eligibility and procedures for clearing marijuana and other qualified offenses.

Sweeney said Thursday afternoon the bill would head straight to the floor the next time the Senate convenes for a vote, rather than going through committee. That’s because it’s largely the same bill, aside from removing just a few words the governor suggested.

“We are offering a comprehensive expungement plan that builds on the proposal offered by Governor Murphy so that we can make reforms that will produce more fairness in the criminal justice system,” Sweeney said in a statement.

“I want to commend the Governor for the constructive ideas he incorporated into his conditional veto. We are improving on his plan to make sure the expungement program is more expansive and covers more people.”

The new bill would establish “clean slate” expungement, keeping with the governor’s recommendations to render certain convictions inaccessible after a 10-year period. It also would overhaul the application process to make all expungements more accessible.

Those currently paying off fines would also be eligible, and the collections would be transferred to the State Treasurer, according to the announcement.

Murphy conditionally vetoed the original bill seeking to revamp the state’s outdated and cumbersome process in late August. Both houses of the legislature voted to pass it in June.

Sweeney said in the announcement the move was not a rejection of the governor’s proposed changes, and that the Senate would welcome most of the changes introduced in the conditional veto.

The conditional veto called to establish an electronic filing system to streamline processing of expungements and $15 million to expand the workforce needed to process expungement petitions before the automated system can begin. Another aspect of it called for sealing charges related to small amounts of marijuana, hashish and paraphernalia possession.

He said discussions with Murphy would continue as they seek to reach a full agreement that hopefully includes the Senate’s revisions.

A spokesman for the governor declined to comment on the new legislation.

The Senate had expressed disappointment with the governor’s conditional veto.

“We really thought we had given the governor a good expungement bill,” Sweeney said Thursday.

Their issue centered around just a few words added by the governor they believed would limit the number of people eligible for expungement, he said. That’s the same criticism the original bill’s sponsor, Cunningham, lodged at the governor’s proposals late last month.

“If expungement is a good step toward responsible citizenship, then we should be broadening the opportunity for people to expunge their records, rejoin the work force and be fully accepted in society,” she said in a statement. “Expanding the eligibility for expungement will allow more people to remove that stigma and break down the barriers preventing them from reaching their full potential. That is a principle I know has motivated the Governor.”

She said that the legislative process is not being delayed. The Senate pushed the vote Thursday pushed because Democrats did not have enough members present to get it passed, Sweeney said.

Some social justice advocates praised the auto-expungement process Murphy’s veto brought to the bill. But they also say those suffering the consequences of minor marijuana convictions cannot continue to wait for relief.

Police have arrested nearly 1 million people in New Jersey on marijuana charges since 1990, according to the state judiciary, making the state’s marijuana arrest rate one of the highest in the nation. They aren’t helped by the fact that the state’s current expungement processes is one of the most burdensome in the country, as reported earlier this year by NJ Advance Media.

Bill Caruso, a cannabis industry attorney and founding member of the social justice group New Jersey United for Marijuana Reform, said the earlier Thursday he saw the expungement bill as “a step forward” to reform, but essentially “a task force and a punt down the road” rather than a sweeping social justice reform.

He said there were still questions about automatic expungement after the governor’s conditional veto, including how the state will pay for it and how small municipalities that keep records different will handle them. The bill would not put a stop to new marijuana arrests, something advocates have criticized.

“I think it moreover shines a light that without addressing the underlying criminality associated cannabis, we’re really not addressing anything," Caruso said.

Amanda Hoover can be reached at ahoover@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @amandahoovernj. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

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