For some lawmakers, end of legislative career means start of new public post

Most folks who quit or get canned from a job may spend weeks or months sending out resumes, networking, and otherwise trying to reach the next step in their career.

Not so for politicians who leave the New Jersey Legislature. Legislators who get shown the door often find it’s a revolving door and leverage their legislative service to land other public posts. Many move seamlessly onto state boards, commissions, or authorities, public gigs that come with few hurdles and sometimes huge paychecks.

It’s a “pattern of soft landings” that advocates for good government deplore.

In New Jersey, there are plenty of opportunities, with hundreds of public boards, commissions, and authorities. Some are volunteer positions, but compensation for others can climb into the six figures.

These former lawmakers got the state Senate’s nod for new public posts last month:

• Two former senators, Loretta Weinberg and Christopher “Kip” Bateman, were appointed to Horizon Blue Cross and Blue Shield of New Jersey’s board. The part-time position pays $82,000, with additional compensation for service on board committees, Horizon spokesman Thomas Vincz said. Former Assembly Speaker Joseph Roberts, a Democrat, also serves on the Horizon board.
• Former Sen. Dawn Addiego was appointed Burlington County Superintendent of Elections at a $94,320 salary.
• Former Assemblywoman Linda D. Stender was appointed to an unpaid post at the New Jersey Historic Trust.

Such appointments — typically made by the governor and confirmed by the state Senate — are not a new phenomenon or unique to New Jersey. Still, some watchdogs say such “business as usual” is overdue for reform because of the ethical issues it raises.

Julia Sass Rubin, an associate professor Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy Rutgers University, said she finds it most concerning that the promise of such an appointment could influence how a legislator behaves in office.

“If they know there is a potential lucrative job after retirement, might they vote differently or be less inclined to challenge the governor or legislative leadership?” said Rubin, a board member of the Good Government Coalition of New Jersey.

The process also can be problematic because vacancies on state boards, commissions, and authorities often go unpublicized. That cheats the public out of any opportunity to apply and participate, Rubin added. She stressed that she is not specifically concerned about the most recent lawmakers’ appointments, but with the practice in general.

“There are concerns about transparency, especially given New Jersey’s history of inside dealing when it comes to the Legislature,” she said. “This feels like another example of how everything is decided in back rooms in New Jersey, in a very transactional political culture.”

Weinberg’s appointment last month shows the contradiction inherent in a system that doesn’t require a “cooling-off period” between a departing lawmaker’s public service and their placement on a board, activist Matt Dragon said. Many states require such a hiatus for ex-lawmakers eyeballing a post-legislative lobbying career. Weinberg, a Democrat from Bergen County who declined to seek re-election last year, resigned from the Legislature two days early to join Horizon’s board.

“They know there are conflicts — they’re the ones who banned sitting legislators from being appointed” to boards and commissions, said Dragon, co-chairman of Our Revolution Essex. “But to pretend that resigning 5 minutes before the vote on your appointment that’s been an open secret for months makes it all OK is a slap in the face to voters and makes a farce of the entire system. But they get away with it over and over, so I guess the joke’s on us.”

Asked to comment, Weinberg noted the watchdog group Citizen Action supported her appointment to the Horizon board. She called it “ridiculous” that a sitting legislator would let the prospect of a post-Statehouse appointment sway their votes while in office.

“That could be true of any legislator who might want any kind of a job after their legislative tenure or during their legislative tenure,” Weinberg said. “It could also include any sitting legislator who has responsibility to an outside job or consultancy while serving. So that is a ‘thought’ that could apply to any of the 120 sitting legislators.”

Bateman, a Somerset County Republican who served 14 years in the Assembly and another 14 years in the Senate, sat on the Assembly Banking and Insurance Committee from 1996 to 2001. He cited this when calling himself a good fit for the Horizon board.

“If you’ve been involved in government for so many years and the opportunity arises, you can be a valuable contributor,” said Bateman, who did not seek re-election to the Legislature last year.

Addiego, a Democrat whose switch from the Republican Party in 2019 became a campaign issue that helped lead to her defeat last year, did not respond to requests for comment.

Carl Golden is senior contributing analyst at the William J. Hughes Center for Public Policy at Stockton University. He can understand watchdogs’ concerns that state officials don’t cast a wide enough net to find people qualified for board and commission seats.

“But one of the counterarguments is that a person may be qualified by virtue of background, education, experience, or whatever, but you’re not going to find too many people in the private sector who are qualified by way of being able to navigate the stormy weather in state government, whether it’s the Legislature, the bureaucracy, or the executive branch,” Golden said. “The people picked from the Legislature carry that experience with them. There’s no learning curve for these folks.”

Still, whether and how much ex-legislators get paid in their new posts — and who pays them — matters, Golden added. Addiego’s new $94,320 job, for example, is funded by taxpayer dollars. In comparison, Horizon pays its board members from policyholders’ premiums and other revenue generated from customers, Vincz said.

Even boards that aren’t paid can come with prestige and perks that make them coveted appointments, Golden added.

Take the New Jersey Sports & Exposition Authority, which oversees the MetLife complex and is governed by a 13-member board.

“It doesn’t pay, but you can get a lot of tickets!” Golden said.

The authority’s top job pays plenty: Former Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto became its president and CEO in 2019 — with a $280,000 salary, nearly six times what Assembly members make. Prieto worked as a construction code official in Secaucus when he was appointed to the authority. He resigned his Assembly seat to take the authority position, considered a “consolation prize” after he lost his Assembly speaker position to Assemblyman Craig Coughlin (D-Middlesex).

Prieto declined to comment through a spokesman.

These kinds of appointments should “set off blaring alarms,” Dragon said, about what they are traded for and what must be happening behind the scenes before their details are made public. Rubin agreed.

“The pattern of soft landings for those in power is disturbing,” Rubin said.