N.J. gutted its pay-to-play laws. Millions in donations are the result.
Out of $26,300 raised by the Mantua Township Democratic Executive Committee, $21,500 came from contractors who work for Mantua’s government, with its engineers, its lawyers and other white-collar professionals all pitching in.
Those floodgates were opened two years ago, after the state Legislature gutted New Jersey’s pay-to-play law, a once-heralded good government measure that seeks to prevent construction companies, insurance brokers and law offices from buying contracts through campaign donations.
That has helped funnel campaign funds to political machines across New Jersey, leaving them awash in contributions that the state once tried to restrict as corrupting, an NJ Advance Media analysis of more than 15,500 donations to the parties found…
Backroom deals were bad, reformers admit. But they also question why lawmakers couldn’t try to make the regulations stricter, to discourage them from happening at all.
Instead, New Jersey gave its official stamp-of-approval to the contributions — and channeled them to party machines that haven’t necessarily been the best stewards of the state, said Julia Sass Rubin, a professor at Rutgers’ Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy.
“This just opens the spigots and makes it easier and more likely that it will take place,” she said.
Big money, big contracts
Money is flowing into the coffers of the Democratic party in Middlesex County, the home turf of Assembly Speaker Coughlin, who has helped direct millions of dollars to the county for wish-list construction projects.
The Middlesex County Democratic Organization took in more than $697,000 from contractors in 2024, representing 55% of the money it raised. That included five engineering firms that gave more than $50,000, amounts no other party received.
Among those were the year’s largest donation from a public contractor to a party: $65,000 from R3M Engineering, an Old Bridge company that last year reported doing $3.6 million in business with the Middlesex County Utility Authority.
R3M owner Maura Samuel declined comment. Kevin McCabe, the chairman of the county party, did not return requests for comment.
To critics of the state’s political culture, figures like that speak to how hard it is to change New Jersey’s transactional way of doing business.
“The sum of all of this is making New Jersey a less affordable place,” said Assemblyman Brian Bergen, R-Morris. “And it’s making government work less for the people and more for the people with money.”
It’s no surprise, given the new rules, said Rubin, the Rutgers professor.
“What it means is that contracts are being awarded not on the basis of who is the most qualified, but on the basis potentially of who has given the largest sums of money to those decision makers,” Rubin said.
But will those concerns resonate with voters? That remains to be seen.