In recent weeks, we’ve seen New Jersey Senate President Nick Scutari, a Democrat, along with Republicans from my home district write letters to Governor Mikie Sherrill, urging her to delay the widely opposed independent-contractor rule that is scheduled to take effect October 1.
It turns out they’re not even close to alone.
Below are additional letters sent to Governor Sherrill since September 10. These letters are from some of the state’s top Democrats, including Senate President Pro Tempore Shirley Turner, Senate Majority Whip Vin Gopal and Senate Legislative Oversight Committee Chairman Andrew Zwicker, along with several other Democrats.
These new letters are in addition to the two dozen letters that sitting legislators previously sent to the Labor Department, raising concerns about the independent-contractor rule before the Sherrill administration finalized it. Those previous letters came from Democrats and Republicans alike, in both the Assembly and Senate.
And these new letters to Governor Sherrill are also in addition to the estimated 9,500 written public comments that demonstrated 99% opposition to the rulemaking from all kinds of professions, all across the state.
The most recent public response from the Sherrill administration is a story in today’s New Jersey Monitor, where her acting Labor Commissioner, Kevin Jarvis, claims he is fighting a “river of misinformation” from those of us who continue to oppose the Labor Department’s independent-contractor rule.
Jarvis’ comments today echoed a 2019 op-ed that then-Senate President Steve Sweeney wrote as he tried to defend his similar independent-contractor legislation against widespread opposition. Sweeney’s op-ed back then also used the word “misinformation” and compared critics (including me) to “Russian operatives trying to interfere in our elections,” because we pointed out that his bill was an attempt to copy California’s disastrous independent-contractor law.
More recently, the State of New Jersey acknowledged in writing—on pages 90 and 91 of the independent-contractor rule that Sherrill’s administration just finalized—that the 2019 bill was indeed attempting to alter New Jersey’s regulatory language “in ways that made it virtually identical” to California’s law.
Exactly as all of us said was happening, right from the start.
More Letters Sent to Governor Sherrill
