New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has made no secret of his disdain for the news media, so when legislation that could hurt the state’s newspapers appeared suddenly this week, fingers pointed at the governor’s office.
Democratic lawmakers and newspaper industry officials said they suspected that Christie was pressing for quick passage of a bill that would eliminate the requirement for public notices to be printed. The change could cost the state’s already-strapped newspapers millions of US dollars in advertising revenue.
“It’s a broadside against a free press, nothing more, nothing less,” Democratic New Jersey Assemblyman John Wisniewski said. “I think it’s revenge.”
Wisniewski, who is campaigning to succeed Christie in 2018, said he had heard from fellow lawmakers in Trenton that the bill came from the governor’s office.
It was scheduled for hearings in the New Jersey legislature yesterday, indicating that it has the support of New Jersey Senate President Stephen Sweeney and New Jersey General Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto, both Democrats.
Christie spokesman Brian Murray declined to comment on how the idea for the bill came up or why the governor supported it.
However, he provided an e-mail that said: “Taxpayers and businesses” paid more than US$80 million per year to publish legal notices.
The assembly version of the bill is sponsored by Prieto and Republican leader of the assembly Jon Bramnick.
After the hearings, the bill could come up for a vote on Monday, the last day of the session this year.
The proposed change also has support from the New Jersey State League of Municipalities, although that group did not spur the legislature to act, assistant executive director Michael Cerra said.
Cerra said local and county governments could save money by posting notices online instead of in newspapers.
“We’ve always supported it,” Cerra said. “Local officials have continually made this point to their elected representatives.”
However, the league had not called for “this particular bill at this particular time,” he added.
When a similar bill was proposed in 2010, the New Jersey Office of Legislative Services said the financial impact was unclear. It estimated that government agencies spent US$8 million per year on public notices.
Cerra said the bill would give governments permission to stop placing notices in newspapers, but he said the shift would probably be gradual, with some towns opting to make it sooner than others.
Alluding to newspapers’ declining fortunes, he said: “I do think there’s an inevitability to this, a natural progression.”
He likened the current debate to one from decades ago over changing a requirement that towns publish the full text of proposed ordinances in newspapers. Over the objection of the New Jersey Press Association, the law was changed to allow for publication of just an ordinance’s title, which saved towns a lot of money, he said.
The proposal set off impassioned responses from New Jersey’s biggest newspapers. Both the Newark-based Star-Ledger and the Asbury Park Press published op-eds denouncing the proposal as vengeful.
“We’re really concerned,” said Hollis Towns, executive editor of the Press, one of seven New Jersey newspapers owned by Gannett. “The impact will be devastating. It would entail potentially major losses. And it would mean that local politicians would no longer be required to post legal notices in a place where the majority of the public could see them.”
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