Editor’s note: Antwan McClellan, a former Ocean City councilman, was elected to the Assembly in November 2019 with former Lower Township mayor Erik Simonsen. The third member of their Republican team is state Sen. Michael L. Testa Jr., an attorney from Cumberland County. This week, McClellan and Simsonsen reflect on this first year in office and what they hope to accomplish in 2021. Testa will be featured in an upcoming edition of the Sentinel.
Difficult to form bonds to pass bills
By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff
OCEAN CITY — Assemblyman Antwan McClellan said the COVID-19 pandemic has made it more difficult to build relationships in the New Jersey Legislature, but working with a like-minded team from the First Legislative District has helped.
All three are Republicans, which puts major obstacles in the way in an Assembly and Senate dominated by Democrats.
Looking back on his first year in the Assembly, McClellan said moving to the Legislature after being a city councilman was akin to graduating from high school and going to college.
“It’s a bigger group of people you have to deal with. I’m pretty much a freshman legislator going in and learning and adapting,” he said in a late-December interview. “You’re trying to learn the rules and regulations and see how is the best way for me to make a difference for my district.”
He acknowledges that the pandemic has been an issue with acclimating to the new environment.
“The most frustrating part now is because of COVID not being able to build the relationships with my own party and the party across the aisle,” he said. “You’re not seeing everybody up in Trenton and you’re doing everything through Zoom and over the phone. It’s difficult to get to know people. You’re not having lunch with anybody or having dinner or just talking to them in the hallways or in caucus. It’s different to talk to people that way, to build the relationships, the trust you would normally get like I had with the (Ocean City) school board and like I had with the council because we were together all the time.”
Getting to know fellow legislators, he explained, “is how you build the trust and get the idea of where everybody stands and who you can go to when you want to start moving bills forward and things of that nature, or they may even be coming to you to get things done. It’s tough now to do that.”
McClellan was pleased with one accomplishment, getting a bill passed in the Legislature recognizing the Harriet Tubman Museum in Cape May as the first museum in the state to recognize the abolitionist who helped guide fellow slaves to freedom in the Underground Railroad.
“It’s going to be one of the top museums in the state and in the country,” he said.
A bill that he is trying to bring forward is getting 100 percent of the money paid into the occupancy tax – the hotel/motel tax – to get returned to the municipalities and counties where it is collected. That would be a boon to Cape May County, which has a tourism economy and where the tax generates millions of dollars, only a small portion of which comes back to the county. The rest goes to the state. The bill, A4731, has bipartisan support and is cosponsored by McClellan, Simsonsen and Democrat Valerie Huttle, the deputy speaker, D-37th District, based in Teaneck.
The bill, now in committee, would help places such as Cape May County spend more to promote tourism, arts, culture and history.
“One hundred percent of the collars would be going back to promoting tourism for the summer of 2021,” McClellan said.
Being in the political minority frustrating
McClellan said as a Republican, it is frustrating that the Democrats who control the Assembly and Senate can ignore their input. He also doesn’t like the way Gov. Phil Murphy has been running the state during the pandemic through executive orders, which bypass the entire Legislature.
Democrats, he said, “can decide on their own what bills they want to pass and what bills they don’t want to pass and negotiate parts of the bill within their own party.”
He cited the marijuana bill that was just approved after voters overwhelmingly supported legalizing recreational marijuana in the November election. The bill regulates the industry.
“As legislators we had from the time in November when it was approved to Dec. 31 to put regulations in place because Jan. 1, by Constitution, it’s going to be legal,” he said.
“Those bills are controlled by the Democratic Party so they (were) negotiated by the both leaders (Assembly and Senate) and by the governor and not having any Republican input on that … how they’re disseminating the money as far as the taxes and commissions and all those rules and regulations.” Republicans just saw the remnants of the bill when it came time to vote on it. All three legislators from this district voted no.
“There’s not just legislation,” McClellan said about the way New Jersey’s government is being run. “There are the executive orders. The governor is pretty much regulating how the state is going to be run during this pandemic.
“There are 120 elected officials besides him and they each represent a district. They each represent a part of this state that the governor has probably never been to. They have concerns and things that need to be addressed – post-pandemic and pre-pandemic and during the pandemic and he’s not giving any consideration to that. I think that is a little disheartening and a little disappointing.”
He said the Cape May County Board of Chosen Freeholders came up with a detailed plan on how to open the economy in stages during the pandemic, a plan that was adopted by other counties, but Murphy “didn’t give that any consideration.”
Murphy “just went down restricting with a big hand on how we should be running even though Cape May County hasn’t been as affected as other parts of the state because the population is smaller. We’ve been blessed down here (with low COVID-19 numbers) but his regulations, his executive orders, have kind of put the bolts on tourism and allowing businesses trying to prosper.”
The assemblyman said he would have given counties more leeway to make decisions about restrictions based on how COVID-19 was affecting the county. Instead, he said, the governor punished everybody, putting the same limits on small businesses and restaurants in Cape May County as in highly populated counties that were devastated by COVID-19.
“You can’t pick winners and losers. The big box stores were open. Home Depot was open complete capacity. Lowe’s was open complete capacity. Liquor stores were open complete capacity. How about thinking about the churches? You couldn’t go to church. You couldn’t even gather outside at one point to go to church. That’s an issue,” he said.
Local government and businesses “should be able to take care of themselves if you give them the rules and regulations. Give us an outline and let us color in that outline. If somebody gets out of line, we punish them for that, but we don’t punish everybody.”
Looking ahead to 2021
McClellan said legislation he would like to see passed in 2021 includes approving a Black Heritage Trail, allowing for mobile salons, improving access to all motor vehicle services for each county, better asset forfeiture and elective surgeries.
Mobile salons would allow owners to go out into the community to cut hair and perform other services, he said, including helping the homeless and other people in need.
The trail, he said, would promote Black history and culture in the state.
“We do celebrate Black history during February and on Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, but there are tremendous people in this state who have done tremendous things that a lot of people don’t know about. I think we need to promote that and let people know about the Black history portion of New Jersey. Hopefully that Black Heritage Trail will come through,” he said.
He also wants to make sure that the governor does not ban elective surgeries as he did during the height of the pandemic in the spring. That hurt local hospitals, he said, that lost revenue and were forced to lay off people during the pandemic because the reduced revenues.
McClellan wants to change the state forfeiture laws that distribute assets seized during illegal activities, such as drug busts. Now all the money is funneled into “a big pot” and the state attorney general doles it out if municipalities go through the process to request it. He believes those assets should stay in the communities where they are seized.
“With the forfeiture fund bill, it would allow that money to go right back into the community. You get rid of all those steps.
“If the prosecutor seizes $2,000 or $3,000, and he wants it to go to a local church or to help out a community, he would be able to do that directly without having to wait two or three months going through the process with the Attorney General’s Office,” McClellan said.
The team in District One
The assemblyman said in spite of some of the difficulties working with a Democratic-controlled Legislature and a governor handling the pandemic by executive order, he is glad to be working with Simonsen and Testa.
“My biggest concern when I left (Ocean City) Council is that the six people I served with were unbelievable. They were like brothers and a sister to me. I didn’t know if I would have that relationship” with Testa and Simonsen, he said. He does.
“The three of us are like a family. During the pandemic we haven’t been able to break bread as much as we had been but we talk a few times a week and when we’re able to get together and hang out and enjoy each other’s company and talk about things other than just Trenton,” he said.
“It’s been very positive to … know I left a huge family that I had in Ocean City, with administration and council, and joined another smaller family. We’ve been going at it together and we love and care for one another. It’s unbelievable. I can say I don’t miss that as much as I thought I would. I thought I would be going up to Trenton by myself, but I’m not. It’s a great relationship that we have. It makes it a lot easier and it makes it fun to be doing things for the legislative district with people that you care about and that have the same goals and aspirations and like-mindedness that you would want.”
In addition to his role as an assemblyman, McClellan is the personnel director for the Cape May County Sheriff’s Department and confidential assistant to the sheriff.
Education experience benefit in Assembly
LOWER TOWNSHIP — Erik Simonsen brought his educational experience to bear in the state Assembly in 2020, as well as lessons learned during his tenure on Lower Township Council.
Simonsen, a Republican, said his first year in office taught him tolerance in the Democrat-dominated Legislature, and a need to advocate for issues unique to southern New Jersey.
“Being in the minority is very difficult. It is a great tolerance lesson,” he said.
He added that being on Lower Township Council was an early lesson in that because he was on both sides of the equation.
“I was a minority on our council so I kind of got a taste for what it was like, and then I had a taste when I was the mayor in the majority and got a lot of things done,” he said. What is needed in either case are “communication skills and creating relationships with people. That’s very important, obviously, as the mayor of a town and … when you’re in the minority because you have to be able to reach across the aisle and create relationships with others or you’re not going to get anything to pass.”
Still, Simonsen said it can be frustrating when good ideas are left on the table because he is in the political minority. Sometimes he has to take his name off a bill as a primary sponsor just because the other party doesn’t want him or other Republicans getting the credit, but he can live with that.
“I don’t need a pat on the back or my name in the paper as long as good things get done,” he said. “That’s the most frustrating part but that goes with the territory.”
Geographically, Legislative District 1 is one of the three largest in the state (along with Districts 9 and 24), covering Cape May and Cumberland counties and part of Atlantic County. Likewise, Lower Township is the biggest municipality in Cape May County.
“The difference is it’s a bigger scale. Lower is a fairly large town, maybe not compared to places up north, but it’s the largest in Cape May County. It’s a lot easier if there is an issue you can drive over to a place and check it out,” he said. “District 1 is a large, large area and there are a lot of different demographics to go with that, and Lower has different demographics. I guess it’s just on a smaller scale, where being in the Assembly is that exponentially larger.”
Southern New Jersey also has different priorities than other parts of the state, something Simonsen said he is keen to represent.
“Down here, as everyone knows, is a lot different than other places in New Jersey and our main goal is to look out for our constituents because we know the issues down here are different,” he said of himself, fellow Assemblyman Antwan McClellan and state Sen. Michael L. Testa Jr.
He said that was why he voted against a recent bill on tax breaks and incentives and what he will advocate for in 2021.
“Number one is helping our small businesses because that is the majority of the businesses in our area and that includes Cumberland County as well as Atlantic County if you exclude Atlantic City. The three municipalities we represent in Atlantic County are very rural,” he said, adding the trio will continue working on legislation to benefit small businesses.
“I was disappointed … the majority was more concerned with the corporations and large businesses when the large businesses have been able to stay open and the small businesses have not,” he said about A4, the “New Jersey Recovery Act of 2020.”
“I voted against that because it included a lot of things that aren’t going to help us down here. I just felt like there wasn’t enough, if any, help for small businesses,” he said.
The bill purports to send 35 percent of the help to southern New Jersey.
“I’m 99 percent sure that even that 35 percent isn’t going to find its way down into Cape May County or Cumberland County,” he said, believing most will benefit Legislative District 3 represented by Democratic Senate President Steve Sweeney.
Educational background helps guide thinking
Simonsen, who is athletic director for the Lower Cape May Regional School District, said his career in education informs his decisions.
He said he was all for Assembly bill A4454, which requires school districts to including instruction on diversity and inclusion, but then will vote against an amended version of it.
“The original bill was for ninth through 12th grades. It included a lot of things, it included special needs, which obviously I’m an advocate for as a longtime special ed teacher; racial tolerance, which I’m obviously a huge advocate of. It also talked gender.
“I had voted yes in the Education Committee and Antwan and I voted for it in the Assembly. When it went to the Senate, they amended it and they made (the bill cover) kindergarten through 12th grade,” he said. “So it’s coming back to the Assembly and now I’m going to have to change my vote to a no because I think kindergarten kids should be learning their ABCs and finger-painting and not worrying about those issues. … But having a background in child psychology and education, I just think that’s too young.
“That,” he said, “is an example of things where you’re torn. You have to do what it best for your constituents.”
Simonsen said among the victories during his freshman year were helping with school-based youth services and athletics, both of which he believes are important for the mental and physical wellbeing of students.
Because it was difficult for students to see doctors during the summer, he helped ensure that student athletes that had passed a physical from their last competitive season would be able to compete in the fall without getting a new one.
“We thought the big victory was getting the funding for school-based youth services. There are about 90 schools in the state that have school-based youth services. Not every school in the state has it, but I know we have a very good one in the Lower Cape May Regional School District and they just put one in Vineland. Most of the schools around here have school-based youth services, but it’s important now more than ever, especially with student mental health. That was a victory to get the funding put back in the budget,” he said.
“I just recently co-sponsored and voted on a package of bills out of the Education Committee also helping … approving grant programs for schools that don’t have school-based youth services so they can work with partnerships through Rutgers and Rowan and whoever else and get grant funded programs started up that don’t have these mental health services for students,” he said. “That’s a victory.”
Marijuana bill was lacking
The assemblyman said he acknowledges the will of the voters who overwhelmingly approved legalizing recreational use of marijuana, but he isn’t happy with the more than 200-page bill approved in late December in the Senate and Assembly. He, McClellan and Testa all voted against it.
“It was passed with no parameters. The people voted on that and I respect the people’s vote, obviously,” he said. “I think the Legislature failed as far as not putting guidelines and safety measures in place before it goes legal. It’s almost like … dropping off all the building materials at a job site when you have no plan or architectural drawing of what you’re supposed to build.
“As an educator it’s equally frustrating because I know it’s going to run rampant with our youth. I drafted a bill that teaches from grades three to 12 the dangers of THC and the uses of marijuana and cannabis because people don’t realize, I’ve been a vice principal and teacher and there are kids that young who have been exposed to it. There’s going to be a lot more exposure now that it’s legal.”
He also isn’t happy about the taxation aspect and it isn’t clear what employers do about marijuana use among workers who operate vehicles or machinery or work with children, and how police will deal with it.
“Now they’re going to be faced with buying new equipment to determine if people are under the influence if there’s an auto accident or if you’re pulled over or if there is an incident, domestic, etc.,” he said.
“We’re going to be spending all of 2021 passing legislation to contain it properly. That goes with the job and I look forward to helping with that.”
Working with his district’s team
Simonsen said he couldn’t have imagined going to Trenton alone, citing his colleagues in the Assembly and Senate and their staff in their Cumberland and Cape May County offices who he said are “phenomenal.”
“It’s definitely an advantage to have Michael Testa in the Senate and Antwan and I in the Assembly. Sen. Testa has created relationships with senators on both sides of the aisle and Antwan McClellan and I have done that in the Assembly as well through our committees,” he said. “I think we all have good social skills so we’ve made friends quickly. Antwan is also in the Black Caucus, which helps. When you call people and they already have a feel for what you’re about, you can talk to them on a level basis where they could be willing to sign onto a bill that you’re passionate about. That’s been good.
“If we have a bill that’s going to the Senate, we know we have support and vice versa for Sen. Testa,” he said.