“Sources close to… Sweeney said” the renewed push to get legalization through would come after the November elections, most likely “during the lame-duck session between Election Day and January,” according to the Patch.
That’s a real turnaround for Sweeney, who announced in May that he was ending efforts to pass the bill because he didn’t have the votes for it. At the time, he said the most likely path to legalization was for the state’s voters to decide the issue in a November 2020 ballot referendum. But that would mean another year of pot prohibition.
THE COMBATANTS
Phil Murphy: New Jersey’s 56th governor, he’s a former Wall Street executive who also served as U.S. ambassador to Germany under former President Barack Obama. Murphy didn’t hold elected office until he easily defeated his Republican rival in the 2017 election.
Sources close to Patch say negotiations have slowed to a crawl since Gov. Phil Murphy's administration has been investigating whether corporations misused tax breaks in past years, including one company owned by Democratic powerbroker George Norcross, a close ally of Senate President Stephen Sweeney.
If marijuana legalization is going to happen, it needs both Sweeney and Murphy on the same page, scrambling to get the votes needed to pass the legislation. Read more: New Jersey Cancels Vote On Marijuana Legalization