The New Jersey Assembly State and Local Government Committee approved a package of three bills today that would allow elected officials and political candidates in New Jersey to conceal their home addresses.
The bills are modeled after similar legislation which conceal the home addresses of judges, in order to keep them safe from potential attacks.
The judge legislation follows a July 2020 incident where a gunman dressed as a deliveryman came to home of U.S. District Court Judge Esther Salas in New Brunswick.
The gunman opened fire, killing the judge’s son and wounded her husband.
The judge was not injured and the gunman later killed himself.
The main bill of the three “prohibits the disclosure of the home address of a person seeking election to a public office, a current elected official, and a former elected official.”
The bills have faced criticism, with some noting it will shield politicians from oversight while others pointed out the impracticality of the law.
Micah Rasmussen, director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University, described the bill as “unworkable and unsignable.”
“Governments cannot redact every instance of an elected official’s address. There’d be no legal way to release voter registration rolls, delinquent tax lists, public notices of permit applications,” he said, adding that “[B]asic government functions could not occur.”
And Scott Falon, a reporter for USA Today, noted that former Paterson Mayor Marty Barnes was having city contractors build a pool and waterfall in his backyard – which only was revealed because the public knew where he lived.
The bills already passed a Senate committee hearing as well and now move to the full Legislature.
It is unclear if Governor Murphy will sign them into law.
When asked whether the new bills that allow politicians to conceal their home addresses would have additional benefits besides added security, one politician told reporters on Monday: “Of course. Aside from the benefit that bill collectors and the IRS will no longer be able to locate me, there is an additional benefit due to the fact that concealing home addresses has an additional meaning.”
He went on to explain that, “With the new Home Address Concealment law, politicians can conceal addresses and speeches that they deliver from home.”
“So, from here on,” he explained, “incendiary political speeches and rabble-rousing addresses that are given from home will now be concealed, so that no one will know who it was that gave the incendiary address.”
“Of course, concealing an address also means that no one will know what was actually said in the address,” he conceded, “which pretty much makes the address a worthless exercise, but you can’t have your cake it and eat it too.”
Would it help politicians who live in Jersey and claim to live in PA?
These are public servants.And as public servants their home domicile should be public record. This is the price you pay to serve your public. Take it or leave it.
I am guessing you are not going to become a public servant anytime soon
This is useless. Any nut-job can find the address with a web search. By the time the ink dries on this, who’s moving?
Kudos to the brilliant AC comment but no worries as they’ll get their big tech, big pharma, payola, etc., by direct deposit.