LEGISLATIVE REPORT
Updates from Trenton
Wasting no time to start the year, the NJ State
PBA has been on the move to advance our leg-
islative agenda. We are hard at work behind the
scenes to answer legislator questions and ad-
dress issues before they become problems.
At the end of January, the State Senate gave
its unanimous final approval to PBA-drafted
legislation to amend the Class 3 police officer
ROB NIXON law. The legislation expands the list of eligibili-
ty to become a Class 3 officer to every PFRS re-
tiree, bi-state and federal officers. The bill now awaits action
from the governor.
As stated in the January issue of NJ COPS Magazine, we are
also meeting with legislative leaders to discuss billions of dol-
lars in healthcare savings that address the skyrocketing costs
driven by providers and insurance companies. A debate about
healthcare costs is certain to be a major sticking point in the
passage of the state budget, and it is critical that we address
the costs associated with abuses in the healthcare industry
before any legislator proposes increasing employee costs or
reducing healthcare benefits.
The State PBA is also researching and preparing legislation
to eliminate conflicts between the Law Enforcement Officers
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NEW JERSEY COPS
■ FEBRUARY 2019
Safety Act (LEOSA) and the New Jersey retired officer carry
law. Our review includes the qualification process, the use of
hollow points and other areas in which state and federal law
may conflict. With the help of Retired Members Local 600 and
experts on New Jersey firearms laws, we hope to prepare a bill
that ends any confusion about when, where and how a retired
New Jersey officer can carry.
Unfortunately, not every legislative story has a happy end-
ing. Ignoring the opposition of his own attorney general and
the State PBA, Governor Murphy recently signed a law to
transfer investigations of every police-involved shooting and
in-custody death from the county prosecutors to the attorney
general’s office. The bill sought to fix a problem that doesn’t
exist – namely that cops and prosecutors are “too close” for
there to be impartiality in the investigations of a shooting. We
believe, as did the AG, that the state not only can’t handle these
investigations better than the prosecutors’ offices, but that
valuable time, evidence and witnesses will be lost or compro-
mised waiting on the state to send out a team to investigate. It
was a disappointing and unnecessary bill-signing.
Looking ahead, we expect an active February and March as
we try to close out our short-term legislative priority list.