Recently, the Legislature passed, by overwhelming bipartisan majorities, a bill that would require the New Jersey Turnpike Authority to establish safety standards for highway maintenance workers. One would think that this is an issue no more controversial than motherhood and apple pie. But Gov. Murphy has vetoed the bill. Why? Because, he says, of principle. Regardless of the merits of the safety standards, he said, working conditions for public employees should be established by collective bargaining, not legislation. That the unions representing the workers supported the bill is immaterial to him. It is the principle that matters.

This decision is not as mad as it might first appear. What the Legislature can bestow by statute, its successor can take away by statute. And Senate President Stephen Sweeney proposes to do just that. Last week, Senate President Sweeney proposed a slate of bills aimed at reforming the state’s insolvent pension system. These proposals are vehemently opposed by the state’s public employee unions, including the teachers’ union that supported a pro-Trump candidate against Sweeney in the last election.