Assemblyman John F. McKeon was first elected to the General Assembly on November 6, 2001 and is currently serving in his sixth term. He is a member of the Financial Institutions and Insurance, Judiciary and State Government Committees. John served as Mayor of West Orange from 1998-2010 and was a member of the Township Council from 1992-1998.
Throughout his tenure in the legislature, John has championed efforts to protect New Jersey’s natural resources. In 2004, he authored the historic Highlands Water Protection and Planning Act to protect thousands of acres of land in the Highlands Region - the source of drinking water for half the state’s residents. He was a prime sponsor of the landmark Global Warming Response Act and the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which set a mandatory cap on greenhouse emissions of carbon dioxide, lowering them in increments of 10 percent by 2019.
John also strengthened New Jersey’s environmental laws by sponsoring the Recycling Enhancement Act and Electronic Waste Recycling Act. He sponsored laws that offer incentives for businesses and individuals to invest in renewable energy and a law that established a Licensed Site Remediation programs to reduce the State’s backlog of 20,000 contaminated sites. Most Recently, he sponsored a package of bills designed to stem the negative effects of non-point source pollution in Barnegat Bay.
In addition to legislation supporting the environment, John sponsored the laws that criminalized racial profiling and authorized funding for stem cell research. He also sponsored the New Jersey Smoke Free Act, which banned smoking in indoor places, has championed tort reform, and authored a law that requires newly constructed affordable housing units, also known as Mt. Laurel Units, to be built for adaptable use by physically disabled persons and the frail elderly. In 2007 he sponsored a law that capped local property tax increases at 4% per year and in 2010 he sponsored the law that reduced the cap to 2%. John has been a statewide leader on equality issues, sponsoring the Domestic Partnership Act, New Jersey’s Civil Union Law, the Marriage Equality Act and the Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights.
In addition, John has been instrumental in crafting policies that have met with approval by New Jersey voters in the ballot box. A 2006 referendum he sponsored allows for the usage of a portion of sales tax revenue to be allocated as a permanent source of funding for the restoration of State and local parks and a referendum in 2005 funds a retrofit program that will result in a reduction of carcinogens released into the air by diesel engines. In 2007 and 2009, he sponsored the ballot questions approved by voters to provide $600 million in bonds to preserve open space through the Garden State Preservation Trust Fund, one of the country’s most successful land preservation programs.
John was born on June 3, 1958 in Montclair. He was raised in Orange and West Orange, graduating from West Orange Mountain High School. He graduated from Muhlenberg College Cum Laude in 1980 and earned his J.D. from Seton Hall University School of Law in 1983. John is recognized by New Jersey Supreme Court as a certified trial attorney and is partner at Hardin, Kundla, McKeon & Poletto in Springfield. He resides in West Orange with his wife, Anne Mader McKeon, Esq. and their three daughters, Lacey, Melissa and Jaclyn.
