19:5-6. Annual convention; members; time and place, platform; resolutions and public hearings

There shall be held in each year in which all members of the General Assembly are to be elected, a State convention of each of the political parties.

Such State convention of each party shall consist of the following members:

(1) The party candidates for the following offices:

(a) Members of the Senate or House of Representatives of the United States from this State, nominated at the party primaries held for the nomination of candidates for any of said offices immediately preceding the convention.

(b) State Senator nominated, in each county, at the party primaries, held for the nomination of a candidate for said office, immediately preceding the convention, and

(c) Members of the General Assembly, nominated in each county, at the party primaries immediately preceding the convention, if the convention is to be held in a year in which all of the members of the General Assembly are to be elected; or all of the party candidates for said offices, in each county, who were voted upon and were not elected at the general election held in the year immediately preceding the convention, if the convention is to be held in a year other than one in which all of the members of the General Assembly are to be elected, except that any candidates nominated for the filling of vacancies, in said offices, at the party primaries held in the year in which the convention is held, shall replace, to an equal number, the candidates so voted upon and not elected at the general election held in the preceding year, who received the least number of votes in said general election;

(2) The candidate of the party for Governor nominated at the primaries in said year;

(3) Members of the State Senate and of the General Assembly belonging to the party who are holding office at the time of the State convention and whose successors are not to be chosen at the ensuing general election;

(4) Members of the State Committee chosen as herein provided;

(5) Members of the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States from this State, belonging to such party, who are holding office at the time of the holding of the State convention and whose successors are not to be chosen at the ensuing general election;

(6) Members of the National Committee from this State; and

(7) The county chairperson and vice chairperson of the several county committees.

The convention of each party shall be held at the city of Trenton on the second Thursday after the primary election for the general election in each year in which all members of the General Assembly are to be elected. When the day prescribed by law for holding State conventions of political parties, or any adjournment thereof, falls on a legal holiday, the convention or adjournment thereof, as the case may be, shall be held on the day preceding such legal holiday. The place and the hour at which the convention shall meet shall be fixed by call of the existing State Committee to be issued at least 5 days prior to the date of meeting. If no call is issued by the State Committee, any person qualified to sit in the convention may issue a call.

The convention of each party shall have power to adopt and promulgate a party platform for its party, and to transact such other business as may properly come before it. The convention of each political party, in this Title authorized, upon convening, shall appoint a committee on resolutions consisting of five members. The convention shall then be open for the reception of all proposed planks for the party platform, which planks shall be referred to the committee on resolutions, whose duty it shall be to prepare a tentative party platform and furnish it to each member of the convention within 75 days. The committee on resolutions of each political party shall hold a minimum of three public hearings throughout the State. A number of such public hearings shall be held in the evenings, if feasible, to give the largest possible number of people an opportunity to express their views. The State convention of each political party shall adjourn to meet again at its originally set meeting place not later than 90 days after the initial adjournment of such convention. The State chairman of each political party shall set the date of the adjourned meeting of his party. A notice of the date of the adjourned meeting of each political party shall be furnished to each member of each respective convention not later than 15 days prior to such adjourned meeting. At such meeting the respective conventions shall consider and may adopt the draft of the platform so prepared by the committee on resolutions with such amendments as shall be suggested and adopted in the conventions as a whole. The voting on the adoption of the party platform shall be on the entire platform as reported by the committee on resolutions, unless there be an objection to any separate plank or planks or to any amendment thereto, in which case the voting on such plank or planks or amendment shall be by the "ayes" and "nays" of the members of the convention present and voting.

The provisions of this section shall not preclude the holding of additional State conventions of the political parties at such times as the State Committees of the parties shall determine.

Amended by L.1948, c.216, s.2; 1950, c.35, s.1; 1958, c.125, s.1; 1959, c.99, s.1; 1977, c. 145, s. 1; L.1979, c. 423, s. 1, eff. Feb. 8, 1980.