Assemblymen Kevin O'Toole and Bill Baroni

O'TOOLE AND BARONI: DEMOCRATS CLEARLY MOVING IN WRONG DIRECTION ON PAY-TO-PLAY REFORM

CRYAN LEGISLATION REPEALS PAY-TO-PLAY REFORMS

Assemblymen Kevin O'Toole and Bill Baroni today said that they will vigorously oppose a new effort by the Democrat majority to repeal the pay-to-play reforms enacted two years ago and will instead step-up their ongoing battle to make those reforms stronger through a comprehensive ban on pay-to-play and wheeling.December 5, 2006
Assemblyman Kevin O'Toole/973-696-2323
Assemblyman Bill Baroni/609-631-9988

O'TOOLE AND BARONI: DEMOCRATS CLEARLY MOVING IN WRONG DIRECTION ON PAY-TO-PLAY REFORM

CRYAN LEGISLATION REPEALS PAY-TO-PLAY REFORMS

Assemblymen Kevin O'Toole and Bill Baroni today said that they will vigorously oppose a new effort by the Democrat majority to repeal the pay-to-play reforms enacted two years ago and will instead step-up their ongoing battle to make those reforms stronger through a comprehensive ban on pay-to-play and wheeling.

"After learning that the loopholes in the current pay-to-play ban have been exploited by candidates I would have expected a bipartisan effort to eliminate those loopholes," said O'Toole, R-Essex, Passaic and Bergen. "What I didn't expect was an effort to go in the opposite direction and eliminate the entire ban. The Legislature should be working to make this law tougher, not to snuff it out."

Assemblyman Joseph Cryan, the State Democrat Party chairman, introduced legislation this week, A-3774, that will repeal the pay-to-play restrictions on donations from state contractors enacted by the Legislature just two years ago.

When Cryan first suggested the idea in June he was quoted in The Star-Ledger as saying the law has "hurt us quite a lot." Cryan complained in a Trenton Times story that the law had cut too deeply into the ability of politicians to raise money.

"We simply cannot allow New Jersey to move backward in the fight against the culture of corruption," said Baroni, R-Mercer and Middlesex. "Pay-to-play reform is designed to end the influence of special interest money in politics and, if that has hurt fund-raising by stopping those seeking taxpayer-funded contracts from contributing, that's a good thing. If anything we should be acting to make this law stronger."

In 2004 the Democrats approved a less comprehensive bill that allows "wheeling" to continue and does not impact pay-to-play at the local level. A recent report from the Election Law Enforcement Commission (ELEC) demonstrated that political parties and contributors have been very effective at using the loopholes to get around the law's restrictions.

O'Toole and Baroni have sponsored legislation that would ban pay-to-play at all levels of government and would end the practice of "wheeling" where campaign dollars are shipped from political committees in one county to candidates in other counties. The O'Toole-Baroni bill has been languishing in the Assembly State Government Committee for months.

Baroni and O'Toole called on Governor Corzine to pledge that he will veto the Cryan bill if it reaches his desk.

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