(TRENTON) — The Assembly Judiciary Committee on Thursday will hear testimony on how the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that removed campaign spending restrictions on corporations and unions will impact New Jersey’s laws.
“This ruling could have far-reaching impacts on our efforts here in New Jersey to keep money out of politics,” said Assemblywoman Linda Greenstein (D-Middlesex/Mercer), the committee chairwoman. “We’ve devoted a lot of time and effort to finding ways to reduce the role of special interests in elections, but I’m concerned that both that work and the public interest are now at risk.”
The hearing will be held at 10 a.m. Thursday, Feb. 18 in Committee Room 12 on the fourth floor in the State House Annex.
The hearing will be streamed live at http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/media/live_audio.asp.
Greenstein, long an advocate for campaign finance reform, said wants to hear how the ruling will influence New Jersey laws to restrict pay-to-play campaign contributions.
“I’m worried about the direction of this ruling and its potentially devastating impact on campaign finance reform efforts,” Greenstein said. “We still have work to do to reduce the role of money in politics, yet here we have the U.S. Supreme Court issuing a ruling that could give even more influence to powerful lobbyists. My hope is that this hearing will be a bipartisan look ahead at how we will be handling campaign finance reform in our state in this ruling’s wake.”
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