New Jersey lawmakers get a 67% pay hike, after winning a war against open government

On the final day of the legislative session in 2023, New Jersey lawmakers quietly enacted a 67% salary increase that takes effect now for themselves and other top state officials.

Over the last eight years, a series of recent laws has significantly reduced transparency into state government and made it more difficult for challengers to contest their seats, creating a political landscape critics decry as an assault on the public’s right to hold power accountable.

Beginning this week, the annual salary for a New Jersey legislator rises from $49,000 to $82,000, the first increase in over two decades. The state’s new governor and lieutenant governor will see their pay increase to $210,000 annually.

The total cost of the legislative raise will be an additional $4 million per year from taxpayers. While supporters argued the increase was long overdue to match the cost of living in one of the nation’s most expensive states, its passage followed a string of legislative actions that tilted the political field heavily toward incumbents.

The timing and manner of the pay raise bill’s advancement drew sharp criticism.

Passed in the final hours of the previous legislative session, the raises are not scheduled to take effect until a new legislative session begins, meaning the lawmakers who voted for them have already faced the voters one final time before receiving the higher pay.

This technical maneuver, while legal, has struck many as a cynical effort to avoid direct electoral accountability for the vote. Republican Assemblymember Jay Webber, opposing the hike, noted that “constituents couldn’t vote themselves a pay raise if they wanted to.”

Almost all candidates running in the last election pledged to focus on affordability, but the 67 percent pay hike is only going to make politicians better able to make ends meet.

This legislative action coincides with a broader and more troubling pattern. Over the preceding years, the state’s Democratic-led legislature has passed, and outgoing Governor Phil Murphy has signed, a suite of laws that weaken the public’s ability to scrutinize government and challenge its leaders.

Long-time political and environmental activist Jeff Tittel, described a systematic dismantling of watchdog institutions and transparency laws that amounted to a war against open government.

Key among these changes is a sweeping overhaul of the state’s Open Public Records Act (OPRA). The new amendments eliminate mandatory fee-shifting for citizens who successfully sue to access wrongfully denied records, a powerful tool that enabled journalists and average residents to fight secrecy.

Now, the state argues, a judge must first find that an agency acted in “bad faith” before awarding legal fees.

The new law also allows government agencies to sue requestors they believe are trying to “substantially interrupt the performance of government function,” a provision watchdogs call a weapon of intimidation. Dena Mottola Jaborska of New Jersey Citizen Action called the changes “a slap in the face to the public.”

The state has also rewritten the rules of political engagement in ways that favor established power. The Elections Transparency Act (ETA), signed in 2023, is the centerpiece of these reforms. Proponents, including primary sponsor Senate President Nicholas Scutari, hailed it as an update to modernize and clarify campaign finance.

Its practical effects, however, create significant advantages for incumbents and party leaders. The law doubles or even triples contribution limits to candidates and parties, allowing individuals to give $5,200 per election to state and local candidates and up to $75,000 per year to state political party committees.

Critically, the ETA also fundamentally weakens New Jersey’s once-robust “pay-to-play” laws. It removes state and local political parties from the coverage of these anti-corruption statutes and preempts hundreds of stricter local pay-to-play ordinances.

This means businesses with substantial state contracts can now donate directly to the very political parties that influence the awarding of those contracts, a practice that was previously restricted. Simultaneously, the act shortens the statute of limitations for enforcing campaign finance violations from ten years to just two.

New barriers have been erected for those seeking to challenge incumbents directly. A new law dramatically increases the number of signatures required for a candidate to appear on the primary ballot.

For state legislative candidates, the requirement has risen 150%, from 100 signatures to 250. In districts where voter turnout is often low, this can pose a formidable and costly logistical hurdle for any challenger not backed by the political machine.

These actions occur within a national context where many states are considering or passing laws that limit voting access and increase partisan control over elections.

Democrats bent the rules to suit themselves, prosecuted political adversaries, and created maps that virtually guarantee partisan outcomes, as much as Republicans, about whom they complain vigorously.

Under Murphy’s eight years as governor, New Jersey has been moving in the opposite direction of its professed values.

Organizations like the ACLU-NJ and the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice have been pushing for the passage of a state-level John R. Lewis Voter Empowerment Act to proactively expand ballot access and protect against discrimination, particularly for communities of color. The current legislative agenda, they contend, runs counter to those democratic ideals.

The combined effect of these moves—a lucrative self-awarded raise, restricted public records access, heightened ballot access thresholds, and a campaign finance system now skewed toward large donors and party bosses—paints a stark portrait of a political class fortifying its position.

As a result, the essential mechanisms of accountability in a democracy—transparency, electoral competition, and public scrutiny—have been significantly weakened just as the financial rewards for holding office have been substantially increased.

In New Jersey, the doors to the people’s house, once a symbol of open government, are not just closed; the locks, it seems, have been changed.