the legislature convened its final voting session of the calendar year today trying to push through dozens of bills that were introduced this year some that faced a great deal of controversy others that had very little attention brought to them now it's not the final voting day of the legislative session New Jersey's legislature will return after the holiday break to vote on any outstanding bills and while they have more time to move any languishing bills next month many are feeling the pressure of the deadline and working to get their last pieces of legislation over the finish line senior political correspondent David Cruz was in the state house today tracking some of the bills that we've covered throughout the year and highlighting those that passed as well as those that'll have a major impact on residents in the Garden State there's a leisurely Pace to the final legislative session of 2023 a lot of chitchatting and collegial hanging out but behind the scenes there's a buzz of activity and a push for bills good and bad to get P before the end of the session so what can we expect on this final session of 2023 well nobody knows because all of a sudden out of nowhere affordable housing pops up the one thing about lame duck is it's lame duck and it's you don't know where the Ducks are coming from so and no one talks about it until the last minute because they don't want too much opposition as you can see the affordable housing came up the things that you might think are coming up don't come up because people know about it and therefore there's opposition so that's kind of how it works the assembly housing bill which surprised everyone would turn the affordable housing process in New Jersey on its head we want to put in place a system that operates more smoothly recognizes that more input from communities and gives everybody the opportunity to to get to a place where we're going to make sure that we get the best product meaning the most affordable housing that we can in the state but it's not clear if the bill which got an assembly hearing but no vote hasn't even been scheduled for a hearing in the Senate we'll make it through this session I'm hearing the foral housing is not going to happen it should not happen whether you are in favor of affordable housing reform or not dropping a 68 page Bill days before the end of the the session it's ridiculous and it's it screams uh anti-democracy with a with a small D it's it's really a bad way to make law the Senate we have not had a chance to to review it yet uh it's a pretty in-depth Pro uh bill I don't really have any comment on I haven't seen it yet it's a lot for lame duck session though no you know I don't I can't comment on I I have not read any aspects of the of of the of the bill I do you can't say if the 68 page bill is a lot for the lame duck session so what other questions you have there's talk of a bill that would reauthorize the transportation trust fund which could technically wait until next session and another bill that would raise salaries for lawmakers and other state officials which could also probably wait but probably won't an ACLU Leed Coalition of organizations has been promoting a people's lame duck agenda which includes economic and social justice priorities like reinstating the corporate business tax sech charge to fund mass transit a non-starter here and the creation of Civilian Complaint review boards ccbs with subpoena power a big maybe at best instead a build to reinstate penalties for underage drinking looks like it has the votes in the center it's creating um new fees and fines for youth who possess or consume alcohol we know that fees and fines have been proven for decades to not be an effective way to prevent youth from um drinking Angela mcnight has been ushering the ccrb pilot program through the legislature what makes you think that these guys are GNA go for that listen we I moved it to become a pallet right and a pallet is a trout and then we do have the four cities the four municipalities who agreed to have it so only thing I I I asked my colleagues to do is TR let's trust the process we have nothing right now and we know we need to keep moving forward to have more transparency more accountability today's session could go long and still proves to be a bit of an anti climax but as everyone we talked to today pointed out there're still two weeks to go before the session officially ends and a lot could actually happen before they turn the lights out on the 220th session of the state legislature I'm David Cruz NJ Spotlight News NJ Spotlight News