ASSELTA TO VAN DREW: READ THE ENTIRE BILL

ASSELTA TO VAN DREW: READ THE ENTIRE BILL

(VINELAND, July 31) -- First District Senator Nick Asselta -- responding to his increasingly desperate opponent’s increasingly desperate attacks -- today suggested that Jeff Van Drew should read the entire bill passed in 1999 by a combined margin of 105-8 before he muddies himself further with continued misfires.

“I have never voted to sell, lease, or monetize New Jersey’s toll roads, and I never will. Nor have I ever voted to give the Governor a blank check to pay legal, financial, and engineering consultants in preparation for the sale, lease, or monetization of the toll roads. Jeff Van Drew, sadly, cannot say the same.

“Consequently, Assemblyman Van Drew is apparently becoming more and more desperate to find some way to shake the issue off his back. And as a result, he is now resorting to putting out press releases full of hyperbole (“shocking information has surfaced,” etc.) to try to create an impression that just isn’t so.

“For example, last night, at 11:38 PM, Jeff Van Drew’s campaign posted a press release to PoliticsNJ.com that excerpts selectively from a piece of legislation overwhelmingly approved eight years ago, to create a false impression and once again mislead the voters of the First District.

“By only quoting from selected passages of the legislation, the Van Drew release creates a false impression. This false impression needs to be corrected, and I call on Jeff to acknowledge his misstatements of fact and admit the truth of the matter. Our constituents deserve better.

“For the record: the legislation we passed in 1999, the Structured Financing Act, passed the Senate by a vote of 38-0, and passed the Assembly by a vote of 67-8. Among those who voted for it, in addition to myself, were Democrats Dick Codey, Joe Roberts, Ray Lesniak, Barbara Buono, Herb Conaway, Jack Conners, Nilsa Cruz-Perez, Joe Doria, and Lou Greenwald. Perhaps if the Assemblymen still doesn’t understand what this legislation did, he could take it up with one of his Democrat colleagues.

“Now, to the selective quotes. I won’t reproduce the sections of the legislation that the Van Drew release quoted. I will stipulate to the fact that those sections of language are found in the bill -- and I will also stipulate to the fact that read by themselves, without any of the rest of the language found in the bill, they DO create an impression that the legislation was similar to what the Governor is now proposing.

“But reading the entire bill is important. For example, if I were to quote just the first five words of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States --‘Congress shall make no law’ -- you’d have a very different impression of what that amendment did. In fact, if all you read was the first five words of that First Amendment to the Constitution, you’d be correct in thinking that every law passed by Congress since the ratification of the Constitution was unconstitutional!

“So, clearly, reading the ENTIRE bill is imperative if one is to reach an informed understanding of what the bill does.

“Here, then, are sections of the bill that were conveniently left on Jeff Van Drew’s cutting room floor:

“In Section 3 of the bill, which begins ‘As used in this act,’ and then goes on to include a list of definitions, the Van Drew release omits this important definition:

“‘“Benefits” means benefits, including but not limited to tax benefits, which the State enjoys as a result of its ownership, use or occupancy of its assets of which the State cannot take advantage but which would have value to an investor if those assets were transferred to the investor.’

“So the language of the bill clearly states two things that the Van Drew release fails to explain:

“First, we were not authorizing the monetization of ASSETS, we were authorizing the monetization of CERTAIN BENEFITS ASSOCIATED WITH THOSE ASSETS;

“Second, we weren’t even authorizing the monetization of ALL those benefits, JUST THOSE BENEFITS FROM WHICH THE STATE DERIVED NO VALUE, BUT WHICH WOULD HAVE VALUE TO A PRIVATE INVESTOR.

“This is a crucial point: the BENEFITS that the legislation authorized the State’s Treasurer to negotiate over were ONLY benefits that the State could not take advantage of, but which would have value to a private investor – in other words, NOT the State’s toll roads (because, obviously, the State could and does derive a benefit from them).

“Further, the Van Drew release fails to include the following key passage from the legislation:

“‘A structured financing transaction shall not include the conveyance of a fee simple title interest to real property, nor entail or permit a change in the operation or name of a State asset.’

“In other words, NO SALE, including, by definition, NO SALE OF THE TOLL ROADS.

“I realize this legislation is somewhat complex, and so I suggest that, to clear up any lingering confusion, the Assemblyman might find it instructive to read the Fiscal Estimate attached to the legislation, prepared by the Office of Legislative Services. The language found in the Fiscal Estimate is a bit more understandable to the layman.

“Quoting from the Fiscal Estimate,

“‘The State of New Jersey and other government units own inventories of real and tangible personal property assets that are associated with certain benefits that have value to private sector parties but that have no value to a government entity. The bill authorizes a structured transaction that has the effect of allowing the sale of just those benefits that have value to other parties. The bill does this by authorizing the transfer of the whole package, the assets and its benefits, and structuring a transaction that allows the State or local government unit to, in effect, take back the asset and leave the benefit with the other party.’

“Quoting further, from the ‘Fiscal Impact’ section of the Fiscal Estimate,

“’The Department of the Treasury has identified four State properties appropriate for structured financing transactions, that is, having a substantial asset value unencumbered by financing or bond restrictions with substantial depreciation potential, having a total asset value of approximately $400 million. The department has noted that structured financing transactions concerning such property generally have a net yield after transaction costs of 5% of the value of the underlying asset, so the department identifies expected returns from agreements concerning those assets at $20 million.’

“The first paragraph quoted above makes clear that we were not authorizing the Treasurer to negotiate over the assets themselves, but ONLY over the BENEFITS associated with those assets THAT HAD NO VALUE TO THE STATE. The second paragraph quoted above makes clear that the toll roads themselves could NEVER have been on the block, for the simple reason that they are not ‘unencumbered by financing or bond restrictions.’

“Assemblyman Van Drew owes me an apology – but, more importantly, he owes his own constituents an apology, for deliberately trying to mislead them.”

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Paid for by Asselta Clark Donohue