NJ Assembly starts new term with vows of bipartisan civility

Assembly members are sworn in during the General Assembly reorganization at the Patriots Theater at the Trenton War Memorial in Trenton on Jan. 13, 2025. (Photo by Anne-Marie Caruso/New Jersey Monitor)

The New Jersey Assembly’s 80 members kicked off a new two-year session Tuesday with 12 newcomers, a wider Democratic majority, and calls from legislative leaders of both parties for more bipartisan cooperation as politics becomes increasingly divisive.

Assemblyman Louis Greenwald (D-Camden), the lower chamber’s majority leader since 2012, told those gathered at the Patriots Theater at the Trenton War Memorial that the public’s growing disillusionment with government should spur politicians to find common ground.

“We must remember that politics is not supposed to be a bloodsport. It’s about trying to work through our differences with civility and respect,” Greenwald said.

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Assemblyman John DiMaio (R-Warren), the lower chamber’s minority party leader since 2022, echoed that sentiment, saying legislators most urgently need to cooperate to solve a growing energy affordability crisis across the state.

But DiMaio’s speech was more battle cry than peace offering.

“We will work with the majority on what makes sense for New Jersey, and we will fight clearly, loudly, and unapologetically when we’re alone,” DiMaio said. “No one party owns this institution. That is not obstruction. That is democracy.”

All 80 seats in the Assembly were on the ballot in November. The Assembly members sworn in on Tuesday included 68 incumbents and 12 first-termers, including five who flipped GOP seats to give the Democrats a two-thirds supermajority in the Legislature’s lower chamber. Democrats hold a 57-23 majority in the Assembly (the party retains its 25-15 majority in the state Senate.)

After November’s election, Assembly lost five female incumbents but picked up three female newcomers: Assemblywomen Maureen Rowan (D-Atlantic), Marisa Sweeney (D-Morris), and Katie Brennan (D-Hudson).

The other first-term Assembly members, all Democrats, sworn in were: Anthony Angelozzi in Burlington County’s 8th District; Eduardo Rodriguez in Union County’s 20th District; Vincent Kearney and Andrew Macurdy in Union County’s 21st District; Chigozie Onyema in Essex County’s 28th District; Jerry Walker in Hudson County’s 31st District; Ravinder Bhalla in Hudson County’s 32nd District; Larry Wainstein in Hudson County’s 33rd District; and Kenyatta Stewart in Passaic County’s 35th District.

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Assemblyman Craig Coughlin (D-Middlesex), the longest-serving Assembly speaker in state history, on Tuesday began his fifth term at the helm of that chamber.

Assembly leaders of both parties told members that affordability will be their most pressing priority.

Home ownership remains out of reach for many New Jersey residents, Greenwald said.

“If we ever want to stop the brain drain and fully utilize and realize the return on our investment in public education, we must make it affordable for young people to stay in New Jersey. We must bring the American dream back within the reach of every single New Jerseyan, and not just those at the very top,” Greenwald said.

DiMaio took his time onstage to blast his Democratic colleagues for tax rebate programs and other policies he said have made New Jersey less affordable.

“Our Democratic friends believe that affordability starts with taking more people’s money and creating new programs to give some of it back, new agencies, new acronyms, new hoops for residents to jump through just to reclaim some of what they have already earned,” DiMaio said. “Republicans believe affordability starts by not taking that money in the first place. That difference shows up everywhere. It shows up in a budget process where spending continues to grow year after year, programs expand without discipline, and last-minute add-ons become routine.”