Both Parties Blame Each Other For Lack of Action on Bill Delaying BOE Budget Vote

While the state constitution provides an avenue for Assemblyman Jon Bramnick (R-Westfield) to force a legislative vote on his bill to extend April 20's Board of Education election to provide districts with more time to handle budget cuts, Bramnick said legislative Democrats have blocked the option.

Bramnick announced at the March 23 Board of Education meeting that he had filed a bill to extend the election date, a measure sought by school boards statewide grappling with Gov. Chris Christie's decision on March 16 to cut state aid to local school systems. Decisions on what had to be cut from the budget needed to be completed in a week and finalized a week later. Westfield announced plans to cut 27 positions and various programs as the result of losing $4.22 million in state aid.

At the same time, Bramnick said his bill, co-sponsored by Assemblyman Declan O'Scanlon (R-Little Silver), was dead on arrival since the legislature recessed hours after he filed the bill on March 22 and would not reconvene until May, after the April 20 vote.

"If I can call the legislature back I would," Bramnick said in his March 23 address to the board. "I don't have that power."

Bramnick does have an avenue to attempt to force a special session of the legislature to hear his bill. Article IV, Section I, paragraph three of the New Jersey constitution allows all state legislators to petition to hold a special session of the legislature.

"Special sessions of the Legislature shall be called by the Governor upon petition of a majority of all the members of each house, and may be called by the Governor whenever in his opinion the public interest shall warrant," the constitution reads.

The measure was added to the current state constitution, first written in 1947, on Dec. 3, 1968, applicable to the legislature starting in 1970. To envoke it, Bramnick would first need to get the signatures of 41 members of the Assembly and 21 senators. This is where he said he is blocked from even considering the petition route.

"The reason it is not happening is that a majority of the house is Democrats," he said. "Unless the speaker approves it, the Democrats are not signing."

Bramnick, the second in command in the Assembly Republican conference, said he has talked with several of his Democratic colleagues and they have said they are following Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver's (D-East Orange) lead on the subject.

Currently Democrats control 47 out of 80 seats in the Assembly. In the Senate, the Democrats control 23 out of 40 seats. All of Westfield's legislators are Republicans.

A spokesman for Oliver said that the blame for not having a vote on the Bramnick BOE budget delay bill should not be placed at her feet. Instead he said Christie is to blame. Bramnick is a long time Christie ally, who was on the short list for lieutenant governor and held fundraisers for the new governor during last year's campaign.

"The speaker appreciates Assemblyman Bramnick's concern about Gov. Christie's school cuts and how they will impact education and property taxes, but Gov. Christie has made it very clear that he doesn't support delaying the school elections," Oliver spokesman Tom Hester said.

A spokesman for Christie confirmed that the governor does not support delaying the school elections this year. Bramnick said he has been trying to work this angle in the absence of using the constitutional avenue available to him. He said he has had conversations with Christie Administration officials regarding delaying the budget vote and has communicated what he has learned from attending school board meetings in his district.

"They know how I feel," Bramnick said of the Christie Administration.

Bramnick declined to say who he has spoken with in the governor's office or detail the exact nature of the conversations, citing a need to keep his dealings with the governor and members of the administration confidential.

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, currently 34 states allow the legislature or the governor to call special sessions of the legislature. The amount of petition signatures varies from state to state, with some requiring simple majorities, while others require two-thirds of a chamber. Florida is an exception to the rule, with only 20-percent of each chamber needed to sign a petition to the secretary of state. The other 16 states provide special session power only to the governor.

Brenda Erickson, a program principal with the NCLS, said the dual power was provided to give legislatures a check on the executive in the case of a dispute on legislation. She said it is a rarely used power though.

"It does not occur as often as people think," she said. "Most special session are called by the governor."

Erickson's informal review of state practices, initiated by Westfield Patch's request for information, showed that Arizona only used the practice once in the last 20 years. In Colorado, officials could not remember the last time the practice was used. Oregon legislators have used it in 2008 and 2010 as part of their consideration of moving to annual legislative sessions from having sessions only in odd number years, which is a common practice west of the Mississippi. Erickson said in most instances the session is initiated when there is a substantial police difference between the two branches of government.

According to David Inverso, a spokesman for the non-partisan New Jersey Office of Legislative Services, said it is not known when the last time legislators petitioned for a special session successfully. He said it has not occurred in recent years. In July 2006, then Gov. Jon Corzine used his power to call several special sessions during the state government shutdown. In New York, Gov. David Paterson called repeated special sessions of the Senate in July 2009 during a leadership crisis in the state Senate, a move senators tried to reject.

Erickson noted the special session practice can be beneficial to legislatures since the session, whether initiated by Christie or Bramnick, would have a narrow agenda, dedicated to a handful of topics. In 2006, Corzine focused the special sessions on the budget and his daily address to legislators. When he used the power in 2009, Paterson focused the Senate agenda on nominations and local legislation. Erickson said on occasion, Arizona will hold special sessions concurrent to regular sessions in order to narrow the focus.

Bramnick said regardless of how he could proceed on in terms of a special session, he is hoping to be able to announce something based on his dealings with the Christie Administration.

"I have not given up on it," he said.