6 events in Passaic County with a date

Feuding lawmakers should agree to fix OPRA

By: Charles Stile
Political Stile
USA Today Network

..... Two state Assembly firebrands hailing from opposite ends of the political spectrum recently generated outsize attention in a colorful, unconventional clash.
..... The flap between Brian Bergen, the bull-in-a-china-shop Morris County Republican who as shown a penchant for grabbing headlines and raising the blood pressure of soft-spoken Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin, and Katie Brennan, the buck-the-machine, first-term Democrat from Hudson county, have achieved little other than to spark a social media flare-up.
..... Bergen and Brennan clashed over immigration policy, and their spat was another example of the deep polarization in politics.
..... The dust-up also served as an inadvertent reminder that these two maestros of show horsemanship, firing salvos from the corner of the politician landscape, could easily collaborate as allies on common ground in the future, at least on one issue.
..... But first, the flap.
..... It began when Brennan and assemblyman Ravi Bhalla, her colleague in the 32rd Legislative District in Hudson, introduced the "Fight Unlawful Conduct and Keep Individuals and Communities Empowered Act," a weighty-sounding measure with an indecorous acromy,: "F-- ICE," a reference to the goodish, masked U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and their heavy-handed tactics in President Donald Trump's deportation dragnet.
..... On paper, the bill would allow people to sue immigration offices who "knowingly engage" in unconstitutional conduct. But it seems that the real intent of this clever and crude piece of agitprop sought to tap anger over the moral travesty of our time.
..... Brennan and Bhalla are not the only politicians throwing the f-bomb at ICE or Trump, who deployed this new, poorly trained domestic army into the country. in Illinois, U.S. Senate candidate Julian Stratton declared "F--- Trump" in an ad.
..... Even Senator Andy Kim, New Jersey's cerebral junior senator, drooped the f-bomb in an interview with me recently about the disputed plans OT open a massive ICE detention center in Roxbury.
..... "No one wants these [expletive] warehouse anywhere," he told me.
..... The shootings of U.S. citizens and the wrenching of parents away from their children has a way of brining people to a boil.

Why is Bergen fuming?

..... The acronym of Brennan;s legislation torqued off Bergen, who viewed it as a gimmick too far. he field a He filed a complaint with the Joint Legislative Committee on Ethical Standards , arguing that the acronym diminished "pubic trust" in the Legislature.
..... "when a member uses official legislative mechanisms to advance vulgar messaging rate than clearly describing the purpose of the bill, members of the public can reasonably conclude that the Legislature is being sued for performance provocation at the than deliberative governance," Bergen's complaint said.
..... Bergen, it should be noted, has been quite adept at "performance improvisation" since joining the Assembly in 2020. He burst on the scene during the pandemic, whipping up a protest against the Assembly's COVID-19 testing requirements that led to a confrontation with the state police.
..... In a floor speech last year, [2025] he demanded that Coughlin recuse himself from a vote on the budget bill saying Coughlin's law firm benefited form budget largess. (Coughlin denied his request.) Bergen stormed out of a meeting with Homeland Security officials during New Jersey's 2024 night-sky drone hysteria, calling it the "biggest amateur hour presentation I've ever seen." His tongue can be caustic. His critics call him an abrasive grandstander; supporter say he's a rare bold voice of accountability.
..... "I push the envelope every possible way I can" he admitted.
..... And he's hardly the ideal person to be wagging his finger about vulgarity. He got caught on a hot mic during an Assembly debate over a gun violence measure calling its sponsor, Assemblyman Joe Danielsen, D-Middlesex, an "a----." the incited prompted Coughlin to give a sermon to the Assembly about civility. Bergen argues that the incident was a heat-of-the-moment outburst, which he acknowledges was inappropriate.
..... Brennan and Bhalla's bill, on the other hand, was deliberate and could set an example for other lawmakers to adopt similarly provocative acronym antics that would demean the institution, he said.
..... "Even for me, what she [Brennan] did here is egregious, because there has to be some level of respect for the institution," Bergen said.

How did Brennan respond?

..... Brennan took to the social platform X with a fiery response. Ina video positing, she accused Bergen of fixing on the acronym as a way to deflect attention away form the substance of the bill and his support of ICE.
..... "So it's not the cursing that he has a problem with," she said. "He has a problem with ICE being held accountable for kidnapping and murdering people."
..... She also said Bergen has been silent during the uproar over the Roxbury detention center and noted that he single out her for criticism - not Bhalla or the bill's sponsor in the state senate, Raj Mukherji, another Hudson County democrat.
..... "Make of that what you will," she said in her video.
..... For his part, Bergen said he doesn't represent Roxbery but, for the record, is opposed to the project, and that he would be willing to discuss the merits of the bill if it moves though the legislative process. And he said he singled out Brennan because as the prime sponsor, she is "the sole responsive party" in the Assembly. It is also worth nosing that Bhalla is listed on the bill's cover sheet along with Brennan.

Where do Brennan and Bergen agree? fixing OPRA

..... So here we are keeping score over another partisan flap, accomplishing little, and in its way, deepening voter discontent with the political process.
..... Yet the entire made-for-social-media episode does suggest an interesting possibility. Both Brennan and Bergen are vehement opponents of the 2024 rollback of the state's Open Public Records Act, or OPRA, which gives the public, the press and legal advocates access to public documents. For decades it was a critical tool in holding government officials accountable for their conduct and their control f public money. OPRA helped uncover fraud and misuse of taxpayer dollars.
..... Legislation to weaken the transparency statute were driven by state Senate President Nicholas Scutari and signed by former Governor Phil Murphy, and it infuriated progressive and good government conservatives. It spun the state backward, certifying its backwater reputation as a place that coddled rather than crusades against corruption.
..... Restoring the law to something closer to its original form may take a long campaign. It's not a sexy issue - and it doesn't lend itself well to a social media fight. But Governor Mikie Sherrill was elected on a promise of expanding government transparency and affordability and has generally been critical of the OPRA rollback. the Democratic Assembly was expanded in November [2025 with Brennan, Bhalla and other progressive angered, in part, by the OPRA rollback.
..... It seems as if the conditions are ripe to restore the law.
..... It would be the ideal topic to get the two firebrands from opposite sides of the political spectrum to help lead the charge. A Joint Committee on OPRA Reform sounds far more lasting than a complaint to the Joint Committee on Ethical Standards, or an acronym that raises eyebrows.

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