James E. Harris, President of the New Jersey Conference of the NAACP, today filed a formal ethics complaint with the Joint Legislative Committee on Ethical Standards, asking for a formal investigation of whether Senators Raymond Lesniak and Christopher Bateman have violated the Legislative Code of Ethics in simultaneously representing over 40 municipalities on affordable housing, planning, and zoning issues and pushing legislation that would substantially change those municipalities’ affordable housing obligations.
NJ NAACP Housing Committee Chairman Mike McNeil said: "Sens. Lesniak and Bateman have violated the public trust in intermeshing their private legal work and their service to the public as legislators. We are today asking the Joint Legislative Committee on Ethical Standards to determine the extent of the violation of public trust and to require Sens. Lesniak and Bateman to recuse themselves from further debate on the bill."
Colandus "Kelly" Francis, a member of the NJ NAACP’s Executive Committee and President of the Camden County Branch of the NAACP, said, "When this legislation impacts over $33 million in deals that Sens. Lesniak and Bateman’s clients have put together to try to avoid building affordable housing, there are serious questions about whether the Senators can play a role in the process disconnected from their business interests."
In the complaint (attached), the NJ NAACP:
- identified at least 40 municipalities that Senators Lesniak and Bateman’s firms have represented through partial lists on the firms’ own web sites;
- identified over 15 Regional Contribution Agreements proposed by Sen. Lesniak and Bateman’s clients, with a value of at least $33 million, that the legislation has been drafted to legalize (all of the agreements are presently illegal);
- identified examples of Sen. Lesniak mixing public and municipal business, doing legislative business from his law firm address with a municipality, Marlboro Township, that recently hired Weiner Lesniak LLP to represent their zoning board.
In 1971, branches of the NJ NAACP, including the Camden County Branch, filed litigation against Mount Laurel Township that led to the Mount Laurel doctrine, which requires all municipalities to provide their fair share of the region’s need for affordable housing. For four decades, the NJ NAACP has advocated for the fair implementation of the Mount Laurel doctrine by insisting that municipalities meet their fair share obligations and opposing regional contribution agreements.
The NJ NAACP believes that S-1, the legislation proposed by Sens. Lesniak and Bateman would increase racial and economic segregation in New Jersey and opposes the reinstatement of regional contribution agreements and the exclusion of 50 percent of municipalities from any further fair share obligation.
Founded in 1909, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is the nation’s oldest and largest civil rights organization. Its half-million adult and youth members throughout the United States and the world are the premier advocates for civil rights in their communities, conducting voter mobilization and monitoring equal opportunity in the public and private sectors.