Murphy plans to meet with Senate President Stephen Sweeney, D-3rd District, and Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin, D-19th District, Wednesday to figure out how the marijuana-legalization bill can get the full 21 votes to pass the state Senate, according to a person familiar with the discussions who requested anonymity.
Although the state Assembly has the 41 votes needed for the measure to pass, the upper house is several votes short.
“There’s already an agreement. Sweeney, Murphy and Coughlin already have an agreement. It’s just the votes,” the person said.
Sweeney told NJBIZ last week that some lawmakers had been spooked by the decriminalization of marijuana up to five pounds, as well as how the bill would handle how many feet away from a school a person could use marijuana.
A person close to the discussions confirmed that this was also a concern for lawmakers, especially in tightly packed, densely populated urban regions where residential neighborhoods, commercial districts and multiple school zones simultaneously overlap.