As states that traditionally lean blue continue to see a ‘red wave’, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy received an unpleasant surprise in the last days of the lame duck session in the New Jersey Senate. Outgoing Senate President Steve Sweeney, a Democrat, refused to vote on a bill that would extend the Governor’s emergency powers for 45 days. Sweeney was defeated this year by little known Edward Durr, a New Jersey trucker who received almost no outside help or donations. The Epoch Times Reports–
“On Monday, the New Jersey Senate President announced that a bill to extend Governor’s emergency powers in response to COVID-19 would not be voted that day, the final day of voting in the lame-duck legislative session.
Outgoing Senate President Steve Sweeney, a Democrat, announced on Monday that the resolution to enact a 45-day extension of the Governor’s emergency powers set to expire on Jan. 11 would not be voted during the two final days of the current legislative session. As a result, the emergency powers that the New Jersey Governor had been holding expired on Tuesday.”
All Republicans in both chambers of the New Jersey legislature unified to oppose the measure, likely delaying it enough to prevent its passage during the final days of the lame duck session.
“Although the bill has reduced the 90-day extension to a 45-day extension, every extra day the Governor’s emergency powers are in place is one day too long for New Jersey,” Senate Republican Leader Tom Kean said in a statement before the Monday session.
“We have three separate but equal branches of government: we have: the judiciary, we have the executive, we have this legislative body,” state senator Michael Testa (R) said in his remarks during the voting session on Monday,
“For the past 22 months, the State of New Jersey has been ruled solely by the executive,” Testa said.
As a result, a third of New Jersey small businesses have been shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Testa said in his earlier statement.
He said in the statement he would vote against the emergency power extension and asked other lawmakers to do the same.
