The New Jersey legislative cycle is a two-year process. This year is an election year, which means that the current legislative cycle will come to an end in early January. Any pending legislation that is not passed and signed into law within the current cycle must start over from the very beginning in the new legislature.
The time between the end of the November election and the start of the next legislative session in January is often referred to as the “lame duck” session. Traditionally, this is a time when bills that some lawmakers are hesitant to consider before an election have an opportunity to move forward. There are a number of such bills with a social justice impact that our Task Forces have been working to pass.
All of our Task Forces anticipate the lame duck session to be a make-or-break window for progress on key legislation.
That makes this a strategically important time to identify the burning social justice issues of our day, so that we can mobilize and advocate in this window of opportunity to implement our vision of a “just New Jersey free from systemic oppression and greed, full of engaged people committed to each other, to our communities, and to the earth.”
We need you! This is the time for UUs and our allies from across the state to gather via Zoom to collaborate, strategize and prepare for the lame duck session as well as the next legislative session. We need folks from every NJ UU congregation to come to our 2021 Fall Issues Conference (Oct. 16, 10am-2pm): find out what issues we will be tackling, identify how to make an impact, and take that information back to your home congregation. The better connected and informed we are, the more able we will be to put our UU Principles and values into action—One might even call it Faith Action!
— Charles Loflin, Executive Director, UU FaithAction NJ