Obtaining demographic data on New Jersey’s public officials has been a priority for some state legislators, activists, journalists, and scholars for many years. In 2018, in an effort to codify the collection of demographic data on elected officials into state policy and make it publicly available for analysis, New Jersey Senator Ronald Rice and Assemblymembers Shavonda Sumter and Verlina Reynolds-Jackson, along with co-sponsor Senator Shirley Turner, sponsored S358/A4587, which required “the Division of Elections in the New Jersey Department of State [to establish] a database containing the contact information for every elected public official in the state, including the gender identity or expression and race of the elected public official.”1 While the legislation was laudable, adequate resources were not available for effective implementation, and administrators encountered similar challenges, such as low response rates and decentralized contact information, faced by the researchers on this study, which are discussed in the process findings section of this report.
Legislators and community advocates for women’s representation in public office had also long pushed for data on the gender balance of state boards and commissions. CAWP manages the New Jersey Bipartisan Coalition for Women’s Appointments (BCWA), a statewide, bipartisan group of prominent women and organizations who work to ensure the placement of women in key appointed positions throughout state government. BCWA first convened in 1981. Many of the individuals who have served on BCWA have also individually and with other organizations pushed for greater representation of underrepresented groups on state boards and commissions, including women.
In 2021, then-New Jersey Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg, along with Senator Linda R. Greenstein and Assemblymembers Shavonda Sumter, Daniel Benson, and Verlina Reynolds-Jackson (with co-sponsors Senator M. Teresa Ruiz and Gordon Johnson, and Assemblymembers Yvonne Lopez, Clinton Calabrese, and William Moen) sponsored S4004/A5950, which read: “The Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers, The State University, shall establish and maintain two databases that contain for every person appointed to a State board, commission, authority, or other multi-member entity, and for every elected public official in this State, excluding school boards, the name of the individual, the title of the office held, the term of office, the race and the gender identity or expression of that individual, and the appointing authority.” Senator Rice agreed to have his earlier bill on elected officials rescinded to allow for this project to continue under a unified umbrella.
The bill directed the Eagleton Institute to transmit a survey form to all elected public officials to collect this information. Notably, the original legislation passed by the legislature included this language regarding the creation of the elected officials’ database: “The Secretary of State shall cooperate with the Institute for the survey and shall sign the request to complete the form.” During a conditional veto, Governor Murphy struck “and shall sign the request to complete the form” from the legislation. This change created a major challenge to data collection (pertaining to response rates) which is elaborated on in the findings and recommendations section of this report.
The legislation specifically named the Eagleton Institute’s Center for American Women and Politics in partnership with its Center for Public Interest Polling to collect this information; the expectation was the two Centers’ expertise in data collection and analysis would be helpful in the creation of the databases and in codifying a process that could be sustained long-term. CAWP is nationally recognized as the leading source of scholarly research and current data about women’s political participation in the United States. Since its inception, CAWP has been collecting demographic data on women officeholders and candidates nationwide. This data is used by scholars, researchers, and the media and is heralded for its use of self-identification in regard to determining race codes. With its legacy of data collection in this area, CAWP researchers managed and provided the infrastructure for this project by creating the lists of elected public officials, building out the public database, and synthesizing results for a public audience. ECPIP is the oldest university-based statewide survey research center in the United States. ECPIP conducts scientifically rigorous survey research, often in collaboration with government agencies, non-profit organizations, and university faculty and staff. For this project, ECPIP was tasked with implementing the survey to the elected public officials in the state. This included email and phone outreach as well as research into alternative contact information.
This report focuses specifically on the elected officials’ data project; simultaneously, CAWP and ECPIP collected data on the state appointees, and a second report on those findings is forthcoming in the fall of 2023.
1 (The bill excluded those elected to a position in a special district, on a board of education, or on a board of fire commissioners.)