BY WALTER ELLIOTT
ORANGE – The City of Orange could become the first New Jersey municipality to have statutory term limits on its elected officials if enough valid signatures on petitions are filed on or by Aug. 18 and should a majority of participating voters approve the public question on the Nov. 7 General Election.
The Committee for Term Limits in Orange has been out on its petition signature drive since receiving the City Clerk’s Office green light July 23. They had held a drive-through signing at Monte Irvin Orange Park’s Seven Oaks entrance Aug. 5.
CTLO needs at least 733 signatures to have their public question qualify for the Nov. 7 ballot.
The citizens committee is asking city voters to approve legislation where current Orange and City Council members, who have been in office seven years or longer on Dec. 31, would not be eligible for re-election for at least four years. That four-year “cooling off” period includes not being appointed to municipal boards or committees.
The public question’s net effect is to keep incumbent mayors and council members from holding office beyond two consecutive terms. The proposed law reflects federal legislation which has limited the President of the United States to a pair of four-year terms. (Congress passed the 22nd Amendment in 1947 after Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had won four consecutive elections, died in office in 1945.)
Term limits otherwise on the federal, New Jersey, county and municipal levels are currently done voluntarily. West Orange Councilman Joe Krakoviak, for example, let his term expire on principle after two terms. (Krakoviak unsuccessfully ran for mayor in 2022.)
Office holders, indeed, may be subject to citizens’ recall after a year in office. Retirement, defeat at the polls, a promotion or health/work/family issues may otherwise limit incumbents.
CTLO is looking for at least 733 signatures. The Clerk’s Office had arrived at that number based on the percentage of participating registered city voters in the last May non-partisan municipal election.
And that is the first step on the path to setting municipal term limits in Orange.
Once the sufficient valid petition signatures are verified, then the public question’s language and interpretive statement goes to the Essex County Clerk’s Elections Division. If the language passes muster, then on the ballot it goes.
Then it would be the turn of a majority of participating Orange voters but that may not be the question’s finish line.
It is presumed that CTLO is seeking a binding measure. Orange’s voters, by contrast, voted twice on successive years on referendum questions to convert the Orange Public Schools Board of Education from a mayor-appointed to a voter-elected panel in 2015-16.
The first question, post-election, was made nonbinding. The second question was binding. A majority of participating voters approved both questions.
After that, there may be approval and legislative changes needed at the State House in Trenton – at least in the view of a leading public interest legal firm leader.
Renee Steinhagen, executive director of New Jersey Appleseed: a Public Interest Law Center of NJ, points to language in New Jersey’s 1947 Constitution that may blunt CTLO or other statutory term limit advocacy’ efforts.
The state statute “does not set forth any qualifications other than residency and voter age,” said Steinhagen to a reporter Aug. 4. “If a municipality passes a term limit, they’re now imposing an additional requirement.”
