"Dual-office holders at any level of government creates the obvious potential for abuses of power"

"Double dipping", or the holding of multiple positions  is not illegal in New Jersey as it is in other states, although it should be. Double dipping is common at the state, county and local level in New Jersey. Far from being insignificant “faults” as the Orange Transcript described them “double dipping” is a major contributor to the gridlock and unethical conduct strangling political (and tax) reform efforts in New Jersey. There are many reasons for concern. Holding two elective offices:

•    Insulates office holders from political accountability
•    Frustrates the system of checks and balances among levels of government
•    Amplifies pork-barrel spending
•    Blocks the political ladder to emerging aspirants
•    Reinforces the state’s predilection for localism, parochialism and fragmentation
•    Creates “low-show” jobs that divide the time and attention of elected officials.
•    Puts officials in a built-in conflict of obligation situation

While duel office, or multiple job holding, is technically legal in New Jersey, reformers have been trying to ban the practice since the constitutional convention of 1946. The New Jersey Supreme Court in 1961 issued a ruling that threatened the practice, but the Legislature passed a bill that affirmed it. The current Joint Legislative Committee on Constitutional Reform recommends eliminating the practice.

Conspicuously absent from the 23-bill ethics reform package passed by the Legislature and signed by Gov. James McGreevey in 2004, amidst a public and media outcry over corruption, was any restriction on dual office holding by legislators.  Assemblyman David Wolfe observed at a hearing of the Assembly State Government Committee when it considered a resolution to create a commission to study dual office holding that, “very often…commissions and task forces are good ways to bury issues”  

The committee was chaired by Assemblyman Mims Hackett, Mayor of Orange.