Herald & Lantern 21 October 81

25

Governor’s ‘Courtesy’ End Sought

Bond Vote For Waste Cleanup Supported

TRENTON — An end to a traditional Jype of •‘gubernatorial Courtesy’’ in-which the governor requests bills passed by both houses only, when he is prepared to act on them is one of three state constitutional amendq^ents to be decided at the polls Nov. 3, reports the New Jersey Taxpayer^ Association, a private nonprofit governmental research organization now in'its 51st year. Although this tradition of gubernatorial courtesy has existed for .martyr years, only recently has the practice been questioned. A major reason for concern about the practice is that by not requesting a bill until the end of a twdf-year session the governor can kill the bill and thus circumvent the constitutional process in which the Legislature has the opportunity to override a veto. EIGHTY THREE BILLS following the 1976-77 legislative session and eighty-six bills after the 1978-79 session were treated in this manner. These are compared with 186 bills similarly treated during the period from 1950 to 1975. In the. current legislative session, diverse bills such as' designating the American Folk Dance as the dance of the state and establishing procedures for radiation accident response, both passed over six months ago, still have not been requested by the governor. An Assembly bill passed on June 26, 1980 still has not been a upon. The proposed am ment would end the practice jvhich causes delay or inaction by the governor by mandating that a bill be delivered to the governor on the same day or within 24 hours of its passage by both houses of the legislature The amendment would also extend the time the governor has to consider a bill presented to him from the current 10-day requirement to 45 days to allow time for staff analysis. Additionally, the amendment would assure opportunity for the Legislature Id reconsider a bill passed late in the second legislative year and vetoed, by requiring that a special legislative session be convened the day before the end of the second legislative year solely for the purpose of acting on bills returned by the governor. THOSE IN FAVOR OF the constitutional amendment argue that none of the other 49 states provide for this type of gubernatorial

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courtesy and point out that other states allow their governors an average of less than eight days to consider a bill, In New Jersey the deiay in bill consideration is often lengthy. And the' amount of citizen time and effort currently wasted due to the excessive delay in gubernatorial action is deemed unfair. Proponents assert.-'the amendment to the Constitution would reestablish 'the. balance of power between the executive and legislative branches and add ( certainty ,10 the lawmaking process Opposition to the amendment centers on the point that bills not acted on are not usually major controversial measures, and are either administratively impractical or require further staff analysis before

executive action. Another concern with the amendment is that it does not provide the proper approach to the problem. A preferred approach would be through rule, changes instead of awkward and rigid constitutional language. For example, the senate in 1980 adopted a rule requiring that'Senate-originated, measures be sent to the governor within 45 days of passage, or on the 15th day after passage if passed 6n dr after Nov. 1 of the second year of a two-year Legislature, unless delay is ordered by the Senate or the Senate President. Voters will discover that the November ballot questions are somewhat complex and that advance study of the questions is desirable, suggests NJTA.

MILLVILLE Republican candidate for State Senate, Assemblyman James R. Hurley has urged New Jersey voters to ipipport the $100 million bond issue on November’s ballot which will finance the loca-. lion and elimination of hundreds of hidden toxic waste dump sites which pose extreme environmental threats throughout the state. /’Out state is literally riddled with hundreds of hazardous chfmical dump sites," Hurley said. "These hidden sites threaten td fester like untreated sores until they leak into our water supplies and threaten our vefp, lives. CLEANING UP these sites is now a public pro-

blem, Hurley [minted out "Legislation now prohibits manufacturers from carelessly^ dumping and stockpiling hazardous cheinicals, but when these existing chemical dumps were created, there were no such laws to protect the environment." Hurley explained. "In fact! tfie lethal danger poAed by many of these chemicals was unknown at the time these dumps were created " v For these ' reasons, responsibility for cleaning up these chemical pockets can not be fi$ed on individual manufacturers and dumpers •FOR OLR OWN sakes. we must support the bond issue so these chemicals can be removed from bur environment before it’s too

' late,".Hurley said "New technologies have been developed to cope with the-disposal of hal-ar dous chemicals, including' those considered indestructable in nature.’.’ Hurley added THE CANDIDATE ex plained that finding the sites, estimated at 350 state wide, will be an ex pensive process- as will identifying their contents "No one will benefit from locating, mapping, and in-' ventorying these toxic yv^stc dump sites if there are, no funds available to eliminate these blights," the assemblyman said

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