Fighting for a seat – nj.com – nj.com

At her first meeting as a new commissioner of the state Sports and Exposition Authority, Karen Kessler said officials handed her a gift.

It was a men’s necktie.

“What am I supposed to with this?” Kessler recalls saying.

The neckties, featuring the logo of the Sports and Exposition Authority, were given to every member of the powerful board. At the time, it never occurred to anyone that a woman might be a voting member of the board at the public agency that oversees sports arenas and racetracks.

The year was 1992.

“There was never a woman there and they never envisioned there would be,” said Kessler, now president of Evergreen Partners, a crisis communications and public relations firm. “It was a chilly reception to say the least.”

Nearly 30 years after Kessler’s term as the first woman appointed to the board, the Sports and Exposition Authority isn’t handing out men’s neckties anymore. Still, some things have not changed.

The board currently has 14 men — and one woman.

Same goes for the New Jersey Turnpike Authority board, the state Public Employment Relations Commission, the Water Supply Authority and several other state commissions and authorities. All have just one woman on the board.

And there are no female board members on the State Investment Council, the North Jersey District Water Supply Commission or the School Ethics Commission.

A vast majority of the state’s most powerful boards, authorities and commissions — where big and small decisions affecting the state and the everyday lives of residents are made every month — still have few, if any, women at the table.

An NJ Advance Media review of appointments to more than 900 seats on 85 of the state’s most influential boards found women held about 28% of the seats as of April 1. Men are in the majority on 67 of the 85 boards, including nearly all of the boards considered the most influential, from the Rutgers Board of Governors to the NJ Transit board and the Board of Public Utilities.

It’s a disturbing inequity in a state where appointed boards and commissions hold great power, said Debbie Walsh, director of Rutgers University’s Center for American Women and Politics.

These are the boards that raise tolls, set college tuition, control the airports, give licenses to doctors and decide how the state invests its money. Collectively, the appointed boards control billions of dollars in taxpayer money, far more than New Jersey’s state budget. They all hold public meetings, but often with little press and few members of the public in attendance.

And many of the biggest decisions are made with nearly all men voting.

Diversifying state government was one of Gov. Phil Murphy’s key campaign promises.

“I pledged … that we would be a different type of administration, we would lead in new ways,” Murphy said soon after his election. “This commitment includes putting a leadership team on the field that mirrors our state in its diversity, its talent and its capabilities.”

But, after 3 1/2 years in office, the numbers show he hasn’t made much of a dent in the male bastion of state boards and commissions.

Overall, about 43% of Murphy’s 1,381 appointments across state government have been women since he took office. However, only 38% of Murphy’s picks for top state boards, cabinet posts and other positions requiring Senate approval have been women, his spokeswoman said.

Murphy has appointed the state’s first majority-women cabinet and worked hard to select women for the state Supreme Court and seats on several high-profile boards, said Alyana Alfaro, the governor’s spokeswoman.

“One of Gov. Murphy’s top priorities has been to change the culture of Trenton to ensure full and equitable representation for women in state government, especially on state boards, commissions and authorities,” Alfaro said.

But his critics say it has not been nearly enough.

The percentage of women on powerful state boards has barely moved since the Democrat took office. Many seats have remained unfilled for years. Other appointments have been tied up in political fights in the state Legislature. And Murphy has had four different people running his appointments office in three years.

It’s also difficult to know how racially diverse the boards are because board members are not required to list their races anywhere — an issue the Murphy administration is trying to address with new optional questions about race and sexual orientation on board member applications.

Progressive activist Patricia Campos-Medina said she is among those who has submitted the names of women and minority business owners, attorneys and people with doctorates for openings on state boards and commissions only to see the suggestions go “into a black hole” during the Murphy administration.

Meanwhile, many of the governor’s appointments have been donors or those with deep political ties, she said.

“It’s an insider’s game,” said Campos-Medina, a member of the Bipartisan Commission for Women’s Appointments, a state group pushing for more female appointments. “There isn’t as much effort anymore to be inclusive of communities that represent the diversity of the state.”

Even if women were appointed to every one of the 158 current vacancies on the 85 biggest and most powerful boards in New Jersey, they still would not fill half of the seats, the NJ Advance Media review shows.

“The numbers don’t lie,” Walsh said. “We are talking about making sure women’s voices are there.”

Studies have shown having one or two “token” women appointees on a board doesn’t lead to much change. It often takes three or more women to gain enough notice to start affecting policies and votes.

And New Jersey’s nearly 500 boards and commissions are often training ground for women aspiring to higher elected office or top state jobs — in a state that has been falling behind other states in electing female leaders for years.

“That is why it is critical that we get more women into these roles,” said A’shanti Gholar, president of Emerge, a national organization that trains Democratic women for public office. “When more women are at the table, they bring an important perspective that is often overlooked or ignored.”

Stalled statistics

Why, in 2021, do many of New Jersey’s most powerful public boards still look like it’s the 1950s?

Largely, because not many people are paying attention to whether women or minorities are appointed, experts say. And also because New Jersey’s Byzantine collection of boards and commissions is an unmitigated mess.

There are nearly 500 state boards, commissions, authorities, advisory committees, panels and task forces in New Jersey. But, no one in the state government seems to know exactly how many boards there are or exactly who serves on them.

Even the state’s own “Boards, Commissions and Authorities” website, which lists more than 470 boards — from the Acupuncture Examining Board to the Youth Correctional Institution Complex Board of Trustees — fails to include all of the state’s boards and includes many woefully outdated rosters of their members.

In 2019, women held 27% of the seats on 58 of New Jersey’s most powerful boards and commissions, according to a study by Rutgers University’s Center for American Women and Politics. (New Jersey’s population is 51% female.)

That was better than the end of Gov. Chris Christie’s administration, when 18% of the same board seats were occupied by women, but not my much, the researchers said.

Calling for “significant improvement” in the numbers, the Rutgers center called on Murphy to dramatically increase the number of women appointed to board seats under his control.

But, nearly 18 months later, the numbers have barely moved.

NJ Advance Media updated Rutgers’ original study and tracked the appointments and changes on 57 boards and commissions as of April 1. (One board in the Rutgers study, the Atlantic City Convention and Visitors Authority, was taken out of the tally because a change in the law dissolved the authority.)

Women still made up 27% of the publicly-appointed seats on the 57 boards and commissions Rutgers studied, exactly the same as in 2019, according to the data. Men currently hold 54% of the appointments on the boards and the remaining 19% of positions were vacant.

NJ Advance Media also expanded on the Rutgers study and looked at appointments to an additional 28 state boards — bringing the total to 85, including nearly all the boards where members are required to file state conflict of interest or financial disclosure forms. The 85 also included large and influential boards not included in the original Rutgers analysis, state college boards and newly created commissions, including the Cannabis Regulatory Commission.

The numbers didn’t change much from Rutgers’ smaller study. On the 85 boards, women still occupy about 28% of the 902 seats, while men sit in 55% of the seats and 18% are vacant, according to NJ Advance Media’s analysis.

On the 85 boards:

• About half of the boards and commissions have two women or fewer among their publicly-appointed members. They include high-profile boards like the state Lottery Commission, the Board of Public Utilities and the state Parole Board.
• New Jersey also doesn’t appoint many women to boards it shares with neighboring states. There are no women on Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor or the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission. The Delaware River Port Authority and the Delaware River Basin Commission each have one female member from New Jersey. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey also has no women representing New Jersey, though Murphy recently named two female nominees for seats.
• Women outnumber men on only 17% of the 85 boards. They mostly include boards related to the arts, health care and real estate, fields where women have traditionally held leadership roles. The state Council on the Arts — with 12 women, two men and six vacancies — has the most women.

Because the state does not have an updated master list of everyone appointed to every state board, NJ Advance Media confirmed the names of the members of all 85 boards by contacting board secretaries, spokespeople and board members, and checking agendas and meeting minutes, where possible. Rutgers used similar methods for its 2019 study.

When he took office, Murphy appointed 11 women and nine men to his cabinet — winning praise for quickly creating the most gender diverse cabinet in the nation.

In New Jersey, the members of the governor’s cabinet often sit on multiple state boards and commissions, often in ex-officio, non-voting roles. Cabinet officials often send representatives in their place.

For example, Elizabeth Maher Muoio, Murphy’s state treasurer, currently sits on more than 20 boards and commissions. She often appoints a representative, sometimes a male deputy, to take her seat at meetings.

If you took away Muoio and Murphy’s other female cabinet members serving on many of the state’s powerful boards, including the Sports and Exposition Authority and the New Jersey Turnpike Authority, there would be no women.

And the boards with a high percentage of women are mostly commissions and authorities related to topics traditionally considered “women’s issues.”

“I find that discouraging,” said Gail Gordon, an attorney and prominent Republican fundraiser who has been appointed to several state boards and commissions.

“I would hope Gov. Murphy in term two or (Republican gubernatorial candidate) Jack Ciattarelli in term one will give women more opportunities to stretch into these non-feminine roles. Why give women softballs in traditional areas, like the arts, when we are capable of so much more?” Gordon said.

Lt. Gov. Sheila Oliver, the state’s highest-ranking woman in elected office, said she made appointing women and people of color to boards a priority when she was state Assembly Speaker from 2010 to 2013. She credits Murphy with being receptive to suggestions for women and minorities to appoint to boards, even if the governor’s office is being criticized for moving too slowly on making selections.

“I know many people are not pleased with the pace,” Oliver said.

Murphy has nominated the first Black woman to the state Supreme Court and recently nominated another woman, Rachel Wainer Apter, for another seat. He has also selected women as county prosecutors and for open seats on the Economic Development Authority, the Gateway Development Commission and other key state boards, said Alfaro, the governor’s spokeswoman.

“While we have made important strides, the governor recognizes that there is still work to be done to change the power dynamic in Trenton,” Alfaro said.

‘It’s a mess’

Murphy’s administration says making state government more representative of New Jersey, one of the most diverse states in the nation, remains one of his priorities.

But making sweeping changes to the network of state boards has been a challenge, said George Helmy, Murphy’s chief of staff.

“The system right now is a disaster. It’s a mess. We’ve inherited a mess,” Helmy said.

In his final days in office, the Christie administration made dozens of last-minute appointments to boards and commissions. After three years in office, Murphy’s team is still working on compiling accurate lists of members on hundreds of boards and overhauling the state website so people can see the open seats and how to apply.

“This is going to be the first administration that actually stands up a portal or a website where you can go on and actually see all of our appointments and who’s where,” Helmy said.

Officials in the governor’s office did not say why it has taken years for them to get the new website off the ground — or if the pandemic diverted took time and resources away from the project. But they said the new website is nearly done and is set to debut soon.

Sam Parker, Murphy’s newly-appointed director of appointments, said she is spending her first few weeks on the job getting a full accounting of how many openings there are on boards that need to be filled. She is also expanding the questionnaire for applicants to ask for information about gender identity, sexual orientation, disabilities, military service and other information that has never been gathered before.

Parker, who previously worked at a non-profit, is the fourth person leading the appointments office since Murphy took office. But, as a single mother of a bi-racial child and member of the LGBTQ community, Parker said her selection for the job speaks to Murphy’s commitment to getting more diverse people appointed to key positions.

“I’m walking in with a lens that is very focused on equity and diversity,” Parker said.

Without greater transparency, though, critics say the situation will be difficult to improve. For one thing, board appointments are rarely widely publicized unless they are controversial. And it’s difficult to track if things are getting better or worse.

“The way we could really know how women and people of color are represented on all boards and commissions in the state would be if this information were systematically collected by the state and made public,” said Walsh, head of Rutgers’ Center for American Women and Politics.

Hidden government

Many of New Jersey’s boards and commissions meet monthly, approving millions of dollars in contracts, deciding on regulations and policies. They get the day-to-day business of government done with little public scrutiny unless there is something controversial on the agenda.

The state boards set tuition for every public college, decide when to raise bus fares, set utility rates and approve financing to build new schools, among many other things — all decisions that affect most New Jerseyans’ lives on a daily basis.

That’s why appointments to big and small boards matter, said state Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg, the leading voice on gender equity issues in state government.

Weinberg pointed to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, one of the boards that currently has all men representing New Jersey, though two women were recently nominated for seats. The board oversees a massive $7 billion budget, larger than most states, and decides everything from bridge tolls to PATH fares and how area airports are run.

“Women’s voices would be so important there, when we are talking about commuting patterns, working moms, breastfeeding areas at the airports,” said Weinberg, D-Bergen.

In Bergen County, women brought a much-needed perspective to the local courthouse, she noted.

“It was only until we got a female assignment judge, along with several women members of the judiciary, that we were finally able to get a daycare center set up in the courthouse to take care of children whose parents were involved in domestic violence or divorce cases and had to appear in court with youngsters in tow,” Weinberg said.

Debra Lancaster, executive director for the Rutgers Center for Women and Work, said she and her colleagues are quick to reject the stereotypes that women bring only “soft skills” like consensus building and empathy to a professional setting.

“Gender stereotypes are damaging for men and women for all kinds of reasons,” Lancaster said. “Men have these qualities, as well. Women may have more stereotypical ‘male’ traits … There are still incredible amounts of double standards.”

Women belong on boards not because they bring “soft skills,” but because they represent half the population and belong wherever decisions are being made, she said.

The key barriers to women getting appointed to board is that women often don’t know about the open positions and the male-dominated state government often consciously or unconsciously turns to other men to fill openings.

“Historically, it’s been true that men tend to pick other men for key positions because that is what their networks, including their staff, looks like,” said Gholar, head of Emerge, a organization that has trained 4,500 Democratic women to run for elective office.

Her group plans to spend the next 15 years encouraging women to seek more appointments on state boards and commissions.

“We essentially need to reform our institutions so that when key government appointments become available, women are included and considered from the very beginning,” Gholar said.

‘Inordinately slow’

Weinberg, the majority leader in the state Senate, questioned whether women are getting jobs outside of the spotlight or have any greater influence in state government under the progressive-Democrat governor.

Murphy has been “inordinately slow in putting people on these boards,” said Weinberg.

“Do I think he always respected the idea that women’s voices are important? Yes,” Weinberg said. “I don’t think he understood how much of that needs to be translated into action.”

Other Trenton insiders say Murphy’s administration was slow-moving, even before the coronavirus pandemic took the attention of much of the staff over the last year.

Campos-Medina, former president of Latinas United for Political Empowerment, the LUPE PAC, said the nomination process in New Jersey is clearly tilted in favor of white men. Women, especially minority women, often have to be hyper qualified to be considered for high-profile state boards.

“Minority women have to have more qualifications than white men to even be nominated by anyone, but unfortunately political connections supersede qualifications in this process,” Campos-Medina said.

Campos-Medina said when she was nominated by Gov. Jon Corzine and served on the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority from 2005 to 2009, she brought her working-class, Latina life experience and her relationships with unions and their communities to the role.

Over time, she said she sees it’s gotten tougher to break through on state boards and commissions.

Murphy does not make all the appointments. Some board seats are controlled by the state Legislature or interest groups. Many nominations require the sign-off from the state Senate.

And individual senators have tremendous power to block appointments from the nominee’s county without even having to state a reason under an arcane, unwritten but unbreakable practice known as “senatorial courtesy.”

Used like a hometown veto, senators can use senatorial courtesy to demand someone else be appointed or to exact a promise that the governor will support a pet project or bill. Appointments often die when senators don’t get what they want.

Senatorial courtesy appears to have killed at least one of Murphy’s most high-profile female nominations.

In May 2018, Murphy nominated former state Deputy Transportation Commissioner Amy Rosen of Montclair to serve as the only woman from New Jersey on the powerful Port Authority board. But Senate President Stephen Sweeney declined to act on the nomination and it expired.

Rosen, the wife of former state Human Services commissioner Tim Carden, failed to get the informal, but crucial, backing from state senators in Essex County for the Port Authority post, sources close to the process said. She is expected to be nominated for another high-profile board instead.

Rosen did not respond to a request to comment.

On April 15, Murphy introduced a new slate of Port Authority nominees after three years of grinding negotiations with senators from his own party. All have political ties.

The new nominees are attorney Robert Menendez Jr. — the 35-year-old son of New Jersey’s senior U.S. senator — and two women: Cliffside Park Councilwoman Dana Martinotti and Hudson County Economic Development Corporation executive director Michelle Richardson.

Sweeney, D-Gloucester, acknowledged the lengthy logjam over the Port Authority appointments but said lawmakers are standing their ground and fighting for the appointments they want.

“The Port Authority has a larger budget than a lot of states,” Sweeney said. “We want to make sure we get the smartest and the brightest, and that does not exclude gender balance and diversity.”

‘Girl job’

Some people serve on state boards because they are passionate about an issue or dedicated to public service. But most admit they seek seats partly to make connections.

Landing an appointment on a public board can often lead to bigger things.

“I think we can all agree that it is imperative for good government that these influential boards have women and minorities at the decision-making table,” said Kay LiCausi, president and CEO of the lobby firm Hoboken Strategy Group and a member of the Bipartisan Coalition on Women’s Appointments.

“Beyond the good public policy of diverse representation, there is another aspect to consider. People who serve on boards go on to serve in elective office, leadership positions, and corporate boards,” she said.

Kessler, the first woman on the state Sports and Exposition Authority in the 1990s, said her time on that board and the Blue Cross Blue Shield board were important to her career.

“You do make incredible connections. You make good friends and business contacts and get some visibility,” Kessler said.

But she had a rocky start. Her fellow commissioners on the state Sports and Exposition Authority were clearly uncomfortable with her at the table when she arrived at her first meeting.

They were not only surprised at having a woman on the board, but they were suspicious of Kessler’s close ties to then-Gov. Florio and confused that she was not a sports junkie, she said.

“They couldn’t figure out what I was there to do. I had to prove myself,” said Kessler, who had been one of Florio’s key fundraisers. “I spent tons of hours studying the financials before the meeting so I would be just as good if not better than every other commissioner in terms of preparation.”

The Sports and Exposition Authority board now has 13 men and one woman, State Treasurer Elizabeth Maher Muoio. Another woman, attorney and Democratic State Committee vice chairwoman Marguerite Schaffer, has been nominated for one of two vacant seats on the board, but is yet to be confirmed.

Marilyn Blazovsky, a retired state lottery deputy director, got a call from the state Treasury department a few years ago to ask if she was interested in a seat on the State Lottery Commission.

After a long career in gaming and working on compulsive gambling issues, she was thrilled to be told the Murphy administration wanted to nominate her for the powerful commission, which controls a large percentage of state revenue from lottery sales.

“I really consider this the capstone of my career,” said Blazovsky, of Montgomery.

After her nomination, Blazovsky updated her resume and courted members of the state Legislature with phone calls and personal meetings to get the state Senate to vote in favor of her appointment — a process she called “daunting.”

“I was instructed to go to my Somerset County senator and reach out to members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. A few called me back,” said Blazovsky, who remains the only female voting member on the Lottery Commission alongside Muoio, the state treasurer, who serves in a non-voting role.

Gail Gordon, an attorney and a prominent Republican fundraiser, has been appointed to state boards and commissions by both Republican and Democratic governors. She was tapped by the Christie administration to serve on the New Jersey Hall of Fame board.

“They appointed me vice chair of the New Jersey Hall of Fame,” Gordon said. “It was not my first choice … I thought it was a ‘girl job,’ but it ended up being rigorous and I enjoyed it immensely.”

Democratic strategist Missy Balmir, a veteran of local, state and national campaigns, joined the board of directors at the privately-run New Jersey American Water last year. Using her government and personal experience, Balmir, who is Black, said she is helping to shape the company’s efforts to recruit workers from Black and Latino communities.

If people want more women to serve on boards, they need to seek them out and give them a chance. But they also need to address some of the difficulties women face, including finding child care and the time to serve in often-unpaid position, she said.

“If you want to engage women, you have to think about child care as a barrier,” said Balmir, a former state Human Services director and advisor to U.S. Senator Bob Menendez.

“Not to man-bash, but the systems are set up to require (women) to work harder. And the men I have worked with recognize that,” she added.

A possible fix?

New Jersey isn’t alone in having a low number of women appointed to state boards. At least nine other states, including Iowa, Utah and Connecticut, have addressed the problem by passing laws that require or encourage a 50/50 split between men and women on state boards and commissions.

No one in New Jersey’s Legislature has proposed a gender equity law requiring state boards to have an equal number of men and women, but Murphy wouldn’t be opposed to the idea, his spokeswoman said.

“Gov. Murphy would support an effort to ensure an equal number of men and women on our state boards. He is open to working with the Legislature to make that goal a reality,” Alfaro said.

Iowa has the strongest state law in the nation requiring all state boards to have a balance of men and women. That 1987 law has helped get women into about 50% of the seats on state boards and commission, said Kelly Winfrey, an assistant professor at Iowa State University who has studied the laws.

But changing the law doesn’t fix everything, she said. Iowa expanded the law to county and city boards in 2012, with mixed success.

“What we’ve seen instead is a shuffling of women from boards that tended to have more women to those that do not. This is helpful, but isn’t doing much to the number of women overall, which is necessary to get parity,” she said.

Walsh, head of Rutgers’ Center for American Women and Politics, said the goal in New Jersey is to get women in 50% of state board seats.

But, even more would be better.

“Why not?” Walsh said, noting what former Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg famously said when asked how many women would be enough on the nation’s nine-member Supreme Court.

“She said nine,” Walsh said. “I think we will be settling for 50%. Think of all the years men made up 100% (of the state boards) and no one was wringing their hands over it.”

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Research editor Vinessa Erminio contributed to this report.