Task
force working out rules for convention on
taxes
Saturday, December 04, 2004 • BY ROBERT
SCHWANEBERG Star-Ledger Staff
A proposal for a constitutional convention to recommend
ways of lowering property taxes began to take shape
yesterday.
As envisioned by a state task force, the convention
would have the power to submit both constitutional revisions
and new laws on taxation and tax relief to voters for their
approval at the November 2006 election.
Delegates would be elected next November but would meet
only if voters simultaneously approve a separate ballot
question authorizing a convention. If so, delegates would
hold an organizational meeting late next year, break for
several months while staff prepares extensive research
papers and begin meeting in earnest late in the spring of
2006 at Rutgers University in New Brunswick.
That outline for a convention has emerged from meetings
of a 15-member Property Tax Convention Task Force held
yesterday and last week. Task Force Chairman Carl Van Horn
has yet to take any formal votes but is attempting to arrive
at a proposal through consensus.
The task force, established by the Legislature to
recommend how a property tax convention should be set up,
must issue its report by year's end.
"It's probably not possible to get everyone to agree on
every single point, but I'm hoping we can get consensus for
the overall document," Van Horn told the task force members
yesterday.
The liveliest point of debate yesterday was whether the
convention should be empowered to propose constitutional
changes, new laws or both.
Senate Minority Leader Leonard Lance (R-Hunterdon) said
empowering a constitutional convention to propose laws would
be "novel."
"It has never occurred in America, except in Ohio
perhaps, in 1802," Lance said. He added that although he
supports giving the delegates the power to propose laws, he
has reservations about creating "a parallel
Legislature."
Ernest Reock, a retired Rutgers professor and author of
a book on New Jersey's last constitutional convention, in
1966, said it is "essential" that delegates charged with
revising the tax system should be allowed to propose only
new laws and be prohibited from making any changes to the
constitution itself. He said that would allay fears that a
convention would gut the constitutional guarantee of a
thorough and efficient education.
"A lot of people fear a constitutional convention,"
Reock said, adding he has yet to hear anyone say what is
wrong with the current constitution.
But Van Horn said even if a convention is limited to
proposing laws, people still will oppose it "if they feel
their interests are threatened."
Most task force members supported the idea of empowering
a convention to propose both constitutional and statutory
revisions.
To accomplish that, a constitutional amendment giving
delegates the power to propose laws would have to win the
approval of three- fifths of both houses of the Legislature
by August and pass by a majority vote at the polls next
November.
Robert Schwaneberg covers legal issues. He can be reached
at rschwanberg@starledger.com or (609) 989-0324.
© 2004 The Star-Ledger. Used by NJ.com with
permission.
|