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New Jersey

NJSPL – Marc Pfeiffer On Fixing the Open Public Records Act

OPRA, the state’s Open Public Records Act is showing its age. Now 22 years old, this important public policy suffers, in part, from age, neglect, unintended consequences, and unexpected use cases. Efforts to repair OPRA must recognize that the law affects all levels of New Jersey government, not just municipal.

Op-ed:The time has come to abolish the line

Professor Julia Sass Rubin has studied the impact of the line on election outcomes and policy. One of her studies found that the line conferred an average 35 percentage point advantage in primaries.

Who Picks Your Politicians?

 “Elected officials are aware of the importance of the line for their reelection and the power of county party chairs to award the line,” wrote Rubin. “If an elected official does not do as the county chair wants, they can lose the line and almost surely lose the primary, ending, or severely curtailing their political careers.”

Nepo babies of N.J.

“What Egan did, that is a manifestation of how machines operate,” said Julia Sass Rubin, a Rutgers University professor who has researched politics in New Jersey. “You just appoint your successor.”

Fighting New Jersey’s Ballot Bosses

 “Elected officials are aware of the importance of the line for their reelection and the power of county party chairs to award the line,” wrote Rubin. “If an elected official does not do as the county chair wants, they can lose the line and almost surely lose the primary, ending, or severely curtailing their political careers.”

A Ballot Blowup Is Roiling New Jersey’s Senate Race

The political leaders of all 21 counties award “the line”—which is essentially far more prominent positioning on the ballot—to their favored candidate. Everyone else appears in the margins. It sounds absurdly crude and biased, but it is highly effective: A study published last year in the Seton Hall Journal of Legislation and Public Policy [by Professor Julia Sass Rubin] found that congressional candidates appearing on the line had a 38-point advantage.

Andy Kim Sues to Block Preferential Treatment on Ballots in Senate Race

Representative Andy Kim, a Democrat running for Senate in New Jersey against the state’s first lady, filed a federal lawsuit on Monday that seeks to redesign the ballot before June’s contentious primary election, arguing the current layout unfairly benefits candidates supported by party leaders.

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