Assembly Democrats

ASSEMBLY PASSES LEGISLATION IMPROVING GOVERNMENT TRANSPARENCY

Measure Would Require Legislative Voting Records be Available Online; Passage Coincides with National Sunshine Week, Promoting Greater Openness in Government

(TRENTON) - The General Assembly today passed Legislation Assembly members Valerie Vainieri Huttle, Jack Conners, Mims Hackett, Jr., and Robert M. Gordon sponsored to improve the transparency and accessibility of New Jersey government by provide the public with user-friendly access to legislative voting records over the Internet.

The measure (A-3252) was passed in conjunction with Sunshine Week, a national initiative to increase awareness about the importance of open government and freedom of information.  The program, started in Florida in 2002, seeks to enlighten and empower people to play an active role in government at all levels and to grant access to information that improves the quality of life.

"For more than a decade, we have had the technical capacity to take every vote we make in Trenton and put it on the Internet in a format that is easy to find and easy to understand," said Vainieri Huttle (D-Bergen).  "It is a long-overdue feature that will finally allow New Jersey residents to quickly and efficiently learn how their representatives vote on public policy issues and matters of government spending."

Currently, legislative voting histories are publicly available via the Legislature's Web site.  However, the current setup is cumbersome and extremely limited, accessible only after navigating through several irrelevant pages, and then, only as a comma delimited text file.  The files are hard to search and even harder to read and understand.

Under the bill, the non-partisan Office of Legislative Services would be directed to provide a complete voting history for each legislator for a respective current session and the immediately proceeding session.  The record would include votes cast in committee as well as votes on the floor of each chamber.  These voting histories would be published on the Legislature's Web site:  www.njleg.state.nj.us.

According to the sponsors, the current version of the bill is much improved over its initial introductory copy and, in addition to requiring records of individual member votes, the Assembly amended it to require OLS to update voting histories on a daily basis.

"The ability to review legislative vote histories online is available in many other states," said Conners (D-Burlington/Camden).  "This Legislature needs to do the same, so that New Jersey can continue to serve as an example of open and accountable government."

"Residents shouldn't have to jump through hoops to find out how their representatives voted on any given issue," said Hackett (D-Essex), chairman of the Assembly State Government Committee.  "We have the technology, the ability, and the responsibility to do so."

"We already offer residents the ability to download legislation and review voting sessions and committee hearings from the comfort of their own homes," said Gordon (D-Bergen).  "Adding  electronic access to voting records is an idea whose time has more than come."

The Assembly passed the measure 79 to 0.  It now heads back to the Senate for concurrence with Assembly amendments.

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