by Sophie Nieto-Munoz, New Jersey Monitor
UPDATE: The measure described in this article—which was proposed on June 19, 2025—passed both houses of the Legislature and was sent to the Governor for enactment.
New legislation from the state Senate president would allow public entities to stop publishing legal notices in news outlets, a move that would end a practice critics say makes little sense in the 21st-century media environment.
Senate President Nick Scutari’s bill would permit governments to post legal notices on their own websites starting March 1, 2026, and require the secretary of state to help set up a website that would include legal notices from all of New Jersey’s public entities.
The state’s public notice requirements came under renewed scrutiny with the February demise of the Star-Ledger, formerly the state’s largest newspaper (the paper’s owners still produce an online edition). The paper’s end left many public entities without a local newspaper to publish their notices in.
Newspaper publishers have long fought to retain the state’s requirement that legal notices get printed in news outlets, saying published legal notices allow the public to keep tabs on their leaders’ actions.
Brett Ainsworth, president of the New Jersey Press Association, said proposals like Scutari’s take away information from the very places people seek it out — independent news media.
“Doing so diminishes transparency and erodes trust in government,” Ainsworth said in a statement.
Scutari’s bill has yet to be scheduled for a hearing before the Senate’s budget committee. Bills that are not voted on by June 30 typically don’t face a hearing until the Legislature returns from its summer hiatus. During election years like this one — the governor’s race and all 80 Assembly seats are on the ballot in November — lawmakers often don’t return to Trenton until after Election Day.
Ainsworth said he supports a separate proposal from Sen. Andrew Zwicker (D-Middlesex) that would amend the definition of newspaper in state law to include online news outlets. That bill would require the New Jersey Press Association to maintain a free website with links to public notices.
Zwicker’s bill would “bolster the civic function of public notices by diversifying news media that can cover notices, thus increasing the online audience that will encounter these notices,” Ainsworth said.
“Maintaining the public notice function exclusively with independent, third-party news media ensures that proper notice was given by both governmental and private parties. Allowing public notices, even if only partially, to be fulfilled by government on government websites erodes trust of government,” he said.