Want to know how your state representative voted on a bill? Good luck. Besides calling a lawmaker's office, there is no immediate way to track a lawmaker's voting record. A proposal endorsed yesterday by the Senate State Government Committee, however, could change that. The bill would require the nonpartisan Office of Legislative Services to make complete voting records available to the public on the Legislature's Web site.
"This bill is another step in the right direction toward making government and its representatives much more transparent," said the bill's sponsor, Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D., Bergen)
Weinberg maintains that individual Lawmakers general voting record should be available for public consumption: "I wouldn't care if it's printed in the newspaper (or on the web) but it certainly, I think, makes sense to allow people access in the best way possible"
Weinberg also noted that significant votes ought not obscured among the many ceremonial votes that are cast in Trenton each year, as presumably is the case at present.
One peek at the current NJ Assembly site and it's clear that Loretta Weinberg is being kind when she describle the current system for voters to track their legislators as "Convoluted."
When asked to elaborate Weinberg replied, "I think (this bill) is just another step toward making everything we do a little bit more transparent to the constituents we represent so they don't have to try find out through so many different places what our voting record is like."
