The 2026 Battle of Trenton
"They're saying that truth, economic consequences and the will of the people aren't something they're even willing to discuss. That position is outrageous."
Yesterday, there was a standing-room-only public hearing at the State House in Trenton, where the New Jersey Senate Labor Committee heard testimony about the state Labor Department’s newly adopted independent-contractor rule.
The rule is scheduled to go into effect October 1, which gives legislators several months to pass legislation and fix this freelance-busting mess.
I live-tweeted the testimony over on X, if you want to check out the play-by-play from the four hours that the hearing dragged on. You can also listen to the entire hearing here on the state’s website.
The upshot is that it was a rerun of the public hearing the Labor Department held last summer, where the only real support in the room for this rulemaking came from unionists—with organized labor standing against pretty much everyone else in the entire state.
Extremism vs. Entrepreneurism on Display
Independent contractors and the business community spent hours yesterday urging lawmakers to step in and pass legislation that would create more reasonable policy, while unionists once again testified against us, one after the next, in support of the Labor Department rule that targets independent contracting.
Prior to the hearing, in a scene that demonstrated just how close the administration of Governor Mikie Sherrill is to organized labor, acting New Jersey Labor Commissioner Kevin Jarvis mingled with Charles Wowkanech, head of the NJ AFL-CIO.
Jarvis then gave testimony that several witnesses (including me) challenged later in the hearing.
Unfortunately, my camera failed to record video of my testimony, and there is no video from the state—only an audio recording of the hearing. But suffice it to say that, as usual, I found myself in a hearing room largely dominated by men, testifying before a panel of senators who are all male, as debate raged about policy that economic research shows is already having a disproportionate and negative impact on women.
Prior to reading from my prepared notes, I testified about three things that happened earlier in the hearing. You can hear me do that in the audio clip below, followed by excellent testimony from attorney Alex MacDonald on behalf of the Flex Association, after which I add a bit more that’s based on this public comment filed by economists at the Mercatus Center:
If you’d like to read my full five-page written testimony, it’s here:
And the “Extremism vs. Entrepreneurism” report that I also submitted as part of my testimony is here:
There is no question about what happened at the State House yesterday, just as there was no question about the 3-to-1 opposition to this rulemaking at last summer’s public hearing, where the only people who testified in favor were either on a union payroll or affiliated with organizations that had strong union ties. There is also no question about the 99% opposition we all saw in the written public comments to this rule that the Sherrill administration just adopted, with only a couple dozen of the estimated 9,500 public comments in support—and most of those couple dozen comments from union and union-friendly groups, too.
The only question now is whether the New Jersey Legislature will act differently than the Sherrill administration, and give us government that is of, by and for the people instead of government that is of, by and for the union organizers.
I continue to hope that my home state will end up with independent-contractor policy that’s based on truth, economic consequences and the will of the people.