Bill would make NJ lawmakers ‘practice what they preach’ on cell phone use

With New Jersey students now banned from using their cell phones during the school day, one state lawmaker wants his fellow legislators to follow in their footsteps and stop scrolling during legislative sessions.

Assemblyman Brian Bergen (R-Morris) introduced a bill Thursday he cheekily dubbed the “Practice What We Preach Act” to bar legislators from using or even possessing their phones or other digital devices during voting sessions and committee meetings.

Lawmakers would have to leave their devices in lockers that would be installed outside every chamber entrance and committee room and not pick them up until proceedings adjourn, “the same way a sophomore gets her phone back at 2:45 p.m.,” Bergen said.

“The argument for banning phones in schools was that these devices are distracting, corrosive to attention spans and harmful to engaging with the people in the room,” Bergen said. “I sit in that room. I have watched members shop, scroll, post and play games while we spend billions of dollars of other people’s money. A kid on a phone in algebra misses a formula. A legislator on a phone during a vote misses a budget.”

Bergen was one of just three legislators — all Republican — who voted against the bell-to-bell phone ban for students, which took effect in K-12 public schools at the start of this current academic year. He has complained that New Jersey’s 1989 law banning beepers on school property remains on the books.

The bill he introduced Thursday would make it a disorderly persons offense for legislators to use phones during voting sessions and committee meetings — the same penalty beeper ban violators face.

As a Republican in a legislature long controlled by Democrats, Bergen knows his bill is unlikely to advance.

But he hopes the proposal will at least shame some of his Statehouse colleagues from reaching for their phones the next time legislative leaders gavel in a new session.

“They all know it’s true. It’s an issue. Like people playing Candy Crush while I’m giving a speech. Like come on! It’s crazy,” Bergen told the New Jersey Monitor. “They can rest assured that I’m going to call them out on the floor if they’re not paying attention, 100%.”