New Jersey Vote on Same-Sex Marriage Postponed, But Time is Running Out

A few days ago, I sat down and wrote a piece on how we all needed to keep the pressure on the New Jersey Senate so that it would pass same-sex marriage legislation and make a statement to the rest of the country—a statement that New Jersey had the courage to do what is right and respect the rights of gays and lesbians to marry.  That is the thought I had on my mind as I went to sleep that night.  But then a funny thing happened.  I woke up to find out that there wasn’t going to be a vote.  What?  No vote?

We knew going in that a vote in the Senate was going to be close.  With 21 votes needed to pass the legislation, and only one Republican, Bill Baroni, voting in favor, Democrats were going to need to hold on to at least 20 (of their 23) votes to make this happen (assuming there is no more hidden Republican support).  And two Democrats, Judiciary Chair Paul Sarlo and Vice Chair John Girgenti, both voted against the bill in Committee and are likely do so on the floor as well.  So with the vote close at best, it was tabled.  The official reason: a claim that it was the Assembly’s place to act first and the Senate would wait on its colleagues. A little late in the game for this to come up, don’t you think?

Postponing a vote that you know (or strongly suspect) you are going to lose is not a bad political tactic.  It can give you time to regroup, continue negotiating with those who may still be on the fence, and shore up additional public support. But the thing is, what we don’t have in New Jersey is time. Chris Christie takes the Governor’s chair on January 19th and he has promised to veto this legislation and any other that grants same-sex marriage rights.

And now, with the process re-starting in the Assembly the bill will have to move out of the Judiciary Committee, go to that floor for debate, and be passed before the Senate has to step up and take a vote.  Though the rumblings from Trenton suggest that the bill will have an easier road in the Assembly, the real question is whether it will have a fast one.  According to the current calendar, the Assembly will recess for the holidays at the close of business on Monday, December 14th.  In fact, even after next Monday, it will only come back into session for a couple of days between now and January 19th, those being January 7th and January 11th. 

So essentially, by postponing today’s vote, the Senate has given this bill a grand total of four business days to get passed the Assembly Judiciary Committee, the full Assembly, and then back to the Senate for a full floor vote.  Far from seeming like a good political strategy, today’s postponement seems like strategic wimping out to me.  Now, if and when this bill fails to become law, it will not be (or at least appear not to be) on the heads of the Democratic Senators who have been pushing it.  It was timing. It was the Assembly. It was the new Republican Governor. 

Granted even if they had held the vote, and even if the Democrats had managed to get to 21 votes, the Assembly would have had to make short order of this legislation in order for it to become law on Governor Corzine’s watch. We will never know whether this would have happened, but at the very least if they had held the vote as scheduled, we would have had the opportunity to see state senators stand up for what is right and what is just.  Instead they just did what was easy.  So very disappointing.

Still, I stand by what I said in my last blog.  Even though this schedule appears as if it were set to kill all of our hopes, now is the time when voters in New Jersey need to pick up their phones and start calling their representatives in both houses.  Regardless of the political shenanigans of the day, we cannot stop putting pressure on until same-sex marriage becomes law.