Senate Republican Leader Anthony M. Bucco delivered the following remarks during the reorganization of the New Jersey Legislature earlier today. Click here to view the PDF.

Senate Republican Leader Anthony M. Bucco delivered the following remarks during the reorganization of the New Jersey Legislature earlier today. (SenateNJ)

Good afternoon everyone and thank you Mr. President.

Congratulations to you and Majority Leader Ruiz, on your reelection to your respective leadership positions.

Welcome to our new Senate members and to all of the Senators who are blessed with the opportunity to serve this grand body.

I also want to thank the Senate Republican Caucus for entrusting me with the responsibility of serving as the Republican Leader of such an intelligent, dedicated group of public servants.

Lastly, and most importantly, I want to thank my family; my wife Amy, my children, grandchildren, and all of the other Members’ families for supporting us in our service to this great state. We could not do this job without your support.

I look forward to working with all of you on a bipartisan basis to find the middle ground, and common sense solutions to the issues our constituents face on a daily basis.

I mention bipartisanship because it is important to give everyone a seat at the table when working to find the best solutions to New Jersey’s most pressing issues.

Issues like affordability, education, public safety, energy diversification, and affordable housing, to name a few.

I believe our state is at a crossroads.

Do we continue with the status quo or do we begin to vigorously address the pressing issues facing our state?

Do we continue with the aggressive spending patterns of the past or do we learn to live within our means and improve the quality of life for all New Jerseyans to make our state a place where we are proud to live, work, and raise a family?

When both sides work together in good faith and enact policies that represent our constituents’ needs, we can rest assured that we’ll be building a future for New Jersey that will be bigger, better, and bolder than ever before.

I believe there is no obstacle New Jersey can’t overcome.

We must be good stewards of taxpayer dollars and enact reforms to help struggling New Jerseyans with property taxes that all too often drive young families, hard-working individuals, and seniors out of the state.

We must administer a more equitable school funding formula so we can provide our school districts with the tools they so desperately need to succeed, and to address student learning loss from the pandemic.

We must reassure our communities that public safety is our highest priority; keeping crime down, standing with law enforcement and prosecutors to ensure that our neighborhoods and schools remain safe so parents and children have the peace of mind they rightly deserve.

We must protect ratepayers and our business community from major utility rate increases; ensuring responsible growth of our state’s renewable power infrastructure without sacrificing the reliability, resiliency, and affordability of our existing systems.

And we need a far better approach to affordable housing that avoids changing the character of our communities with massive overdevelopment while at the same time providing safe affordable housing under sound land use planning. Allowing municipalities to have the flexibility and autonomy to choose what works best for their communities will provide a far better result than what we have experienced in the past.

Our caucus has a lot to offer, and we will continue to lend our voices to the process as we want to be part of the solution to the many issues that face our state.

New Jersey can be a shining example of how bipartisanship leads to good governance.

But we must put our differences and disagreements aside and do the work that the people sent us here to do.

We want Trenton to work as partners with local leaders across all sectors of government to help facilitate economic growth and support hard-working taxpayers.

Being the minority party should not mean our vision or ideas are sidelined from having a meaningful impact on the future of New Jersey.

Republicans look forward to having a seat at the table and I look forward to continuing a great working relationship with the Senate President and the Governor, as partners in public service, to enable greater collaboration in order to best address the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.

All New Jerseyans want is transparency, thoughtfulness, and cooperation from this body of the Legislature.

To this end, Senate Republicans will continue to provide the voice of reason in Trenton and fight for what we believe to be the commonsense solutions for the problems facing our constituents.

We look forward to a meaningful and productive legislative session, advocating for policies that will give our residents and the business community something to be proud of.

Thank you, and God bless you.

Website Post:
https://www.senatenj.com/index.php/bucco/bucco-delivers-remarks-at-221st-legislature/61944