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"...Please understand that we, as District 21 legislators, sent strong messages to both the legislative leadership in both houses, as well as the sponsors of these measures, that we shared our constituents' concerns that these two education measures would fail to deliver property tax savings while damaging strong and functioning local education systems."
Letter sent to GSCS from District 21 (Union/Westfield) legislators, subsequent to county superintendent and countywide district pilot program bills being held in the Senate on 12-14-06. The entire Republican block (18 senators) in the Senate voted against these bills.
To:
Thank you for contacting us this week to share with us your concerns and questions regarding several pieces of education-related legislation that were introduced and listed for voting consideration by both the Assembly and the Senate. We appreciate your patience this week as we worked hard to gather current and relevant information on such bills as the CORE proposals, which included a county school superintendent with local veto powers (S10/A4) and the countywide administration pilot program (S7/A8). As you know, these measures were rewritten and re-introduced without the benefit of public discussion or legislative committee consideration.
We are pleased to report, however, that both measures failed to garner enough support in the Senate yesterday. Senate bill 10 was never called for a vote, and S7 was posted for a Senate vote but was pulled by the sponsors after the measure failed to receive the required amount of votes to pass. Senator Kean was among the 20 senators who cast a "negative" vote on S7. As the bills were not released from the Senate, the Assembly did not vote on the revised measures yesterday. However, both Assemblymen Munoz and Assemblyman Bramnick cast negative votes on both bills in their original forms on Monday, December 11, and were prepared to oppose them again.
Please understand that we, as District 21 legislators, sent strong messages to both the legislative leadership in both houses, as well as the sponsors of these measures, that we shared our constituents' concerns that these two education measures would fail to deliver property tax savings while damaging strong and functioning local education systems.
We will continue to oppose these measures and any others that still might be proposed that would undermine our local education efforts. However, we would ask that you remain engaged as the Legislature is expected to return on January 8, and both of these bills could still be called for a new vote. As such, you may want to email Senate President Richard Codey ( SenCodey@njleg.org) and Assembly Speaker Joseph Roberts ( AsmRoberts@njleg.org) and voice your ongoing opposition to the CORE proposals and the
Again, we thank you for ongoing interest and enthusiastic advocacy, and we assure you that will you keep you informed in the coming weeks as to the status of any legislation that may be of concern or interest to our constituents in District 21.
Sincerely,
Senator Thomas H. Kean, Jr.
Assemblyman Eric Munoz, M.D.
Assemblyman Jon M. Bramnick
