WISNIEWSKI: OLS CALLS SENATE GOP TOLL GAMBIT ILLEGAL

WISNIEWSKI: OLS CALLS SENATE GOP TOLL GAMBIT ILLEGAL
Nonpartisan Legal Analysis Shoots Down Concept of Legislative Veto;
Assemblyman Urges 'Honest Talk' On Transportation Future, Not Political Rhetoric

(SAYREVILLE) - Assembly Transportation and Public Works Committee chairman John Wisniewski today called upon his Republican colleagues to stop politicizing New Jersey's transportation future and engage in honest talk about the dire need for safer roads and bridges.

"New Jerseyans are rightly tired of the empty rhetoric and need to know how we're going to make their commutes easier and ensure New Jersey's economy can rely on our status as a leading commercial corridor state," said Wisniewski (D-Middlesex). "Instead of taking part in an honest discussion about funding our very real and very serious transportation needs, the Republicans have only sat playing politics from the sidelines."

Wisniewski made his call after receiving an advisory opinion from the nonpartisan Office of Legislative Services (OLS) that declared unconstitutional a Republican plan for the Legislature to veto any action by the New Jersey Turnpike Authority to increase tolls to pay for vital transportation projects. The GOP proposal is based on an inapplicable passage in the state constitution that allows for a legislative veto of rules or regulations promulgated by an agency.

According to OLS, "the revision of tolls by the Turnpike Authority occurs, not by the promulgation of a rule or regulation, but by the adoption of a resolution by the authority...Since the action of the authority does not involve the promulgation of a rule or regulation, the process established by constitution...would not be applicable."

"The time for dreaming up clever and exotic parliamentary schemes is over," said Wisniewski.  "It's well past time for everyone, Republicans included, to join in an honest talk about the critical transportation needs of the state."

-- A copy of the OLS opinion is available at:
www.assemblydems.com/pdf/OLSopinion091708.pdf --