- Hi, everyone, Steve Adubato.

A giant in the state legislature is choosing to step down and he's shaking his head, but he knows, he is.

He's state Senator Steve Oroho, Republican, Republican leader who has served 22 years in public service and has chosen to step aside and retire.

First of all, thank you for your service, Senator.

- Steve, thank you so much.

In elected office, it's an honor to serve the people.

People thank me all the time for my service but, Steve, I have a younger brother, Tommy, seven combat tours, three Bronze Stars, the Soldiers Medal, those veterans and stuff like this.

When they say, "Thank you for your service," it really goes to people like that.

I've been elected in office and I'm glad to serve and it's an honor, but really it's... those kind of service hours put in by those veterans go a lot higher.

- Well said, but also thank you for your service and for your brother's service.

But let me ask you this, Senator.

- Thank you.

Hmm hmm.

- How much of your decision to retire and what you choose to share is yours and your families, it's highly personal, but to what degree, and you and I have had so many conversations on the air and off, and one of the things we have in common even if we don't see things from a policy point of view exactly the same way, it's not my job to express my opinion here, is that we believe in very civil public discourse and to be awfully candid with you, Senator, it strikes me that your tone, your demeanor, your ability to engage with people who have different points of view in a very civil and respectful way is not the norm.

Long-winded question, I know, how much of that has to do with you stepping down, the nasty negative vitriol, the divisiveness, the polarizing environment of politics?

Or is that just in my head, Steve?

- No, no, no, no, it definitely.

I'm sure it weighs on a lot of people and it's difficult because, I mean, first of all, I like to consider myself a Christian.

And quite frankly, the two most important business books I ever read weren't even really business, is "How to Stop Worrying and Start Living" by Dale Carnegie and "How to Win Friends and Influence People" and it's not that, I know when I started my career early, I used to worry about everything and used to think about things out of my control.

So that book was very important to me and the other one, "How to Win Friends and Influence People," but you know what it comes down to?

You read the Bible, you read any of the good books or whatever.

It's treating people with respect.

The Golden Rule, if we really followed the Golden Rule, really followed it and I've said this on the Senate floor, love your God and love your neighbors and stuff, we wouldn't need all these other different rules and stuff.

So to say it would have no impact, it wouldn't be truthful.

It certainly had impact because that's what raises the stress level and Steve, I always say, it's a lot harder for elected officials who do the job to get elected than it is for politicians to get elected.

- A good point and I just wanna also jump into this and make it clear that over 20 members of the state legislature, members of the Senate, members of the Lower House in the Assembly have chosen not to run for reelection.

That's a very high percentage of the 120 members of the state legislature.

Do I have that right, Senator?

- Yeah, I'm not sure how high.

I know when I started in 2008, I think there were either the senator or eight or it could have been even nine, new Republican senators at the time and that was pretty high.

Now, some had come from the legislator on the assembly side up to the Senate.

- I'm sorry to interrupt, these are people who have just chosen not to run.

Some are running for higher office, but I'm not gonna make too much of this, Senator, but it strikes me that a very high, a disproportionate number of legislators are just stepping away but everyone has their own personal perspective.

I wanna ask you this, on policy, you've argued that New Jersey is not affordable, others agree.

You can check out my interview with the governor who has a different point of view about how affordable New Jersey is.

What's your biggest beef with the Murphy administration on affordability in New Jersey?

- Well, Steve, a lot of the things, and it's been on my beef for a lot of administrations, that, look, right now sitting with close to $15 to $16 billion in cash and quite frankly, I firmly believe and I've always talked about the attraction and keeping up capital in the state of New Jersey.

And quite frankly we're sitting in it, we had the businesses that are affected, we had the schools districts affected.

Why are we sitting on so much cash when out in the economy or out helping our nonprofits and quite frankly, I think done a lot better in keeping people employed and keeping businesses open.

So, that's obviously been, lately, our biggest beef.

- You've also been very outspoken, Senator, on the issue of the Governor's Clean Energy Plan, green initiative, if you will.

You have piece of legislation, the Energy Security and Affordability Act.

What is it and how is it different from the Governor's Green Energy Plan?

- Well, I think the governor's plan requires a lot of mandates and I think they need to be a lot more transparent about what the true cost is.

For example, going to the full electrification that the governor's plan wants by 2035 is like five times more expensive.

They haven't really come out with all the capital costs.

Others have said that the, say commercial building, like hospitals, schools and stuff that have to go to electric boilers, there's estimates that it'll cost about $2 million each building.

We got about 10,000 of those buildings.

- But, Senator, don't we have climate control, climate crisis, climate change crisis?

Doesn't it require radical policy changes to catch up with where we are right now?

- You know what I don't think it does?

See, I don't think what their plan does is really look at the innovation and stuff.

Recently in the number of articles that came out, you look at the idea of carbon capture out of the ocean so the ocean can actually absorb more carbon.

You look at the idea of the hydrogen, the fusion, and all the new things.

What I disagree with is the mandate and put your eggs all in one basket that say wind and solar and yet they're gonna also allow nuclear, which is very important as well, but obviously what about hydrogen?

What about fusion?

What about all the rest?

And the idea would be only have 50% on non-intermittent.

'Cause look what happened during Sandy, wind and solar.

What happened during Sandy to be able to get those lines, all those power lines back.

If everybody had to plug in their cars, they wouldn't be able to get the work.

- Senator, one more quick question before I let you go.

One of the initiatives we have, the website will come up, Reimagine Childcare, talking about the importance of affordable, accessible, quality childcare.

It's a nonpartisan issue.

We're not advocating for anyone or anything, but childcare, I mean.

We need to have legislators making policy that makes a difference.

How important is affordable, accessible, quality childcare?

- Absolutely critical.

Because the first and one example is when Senator Paul Sarlo, Senator Ruiz and Senator Singleton and I were- - Two Democrats in the Senate, go ahead.

- Right, right, three Democrats in Senate were asked by Senate President Sweeney at the time to hold these reopening the economy.

What was the first one we had?

First one we had was how the childcare industry could reopen safely and that's why it was so critically important and not only, obviously, the governor has done a lot with the universal pre-K, but we also have to put in at the last budget meeting I brought up the fact that Senator Ruiz was very supportive of- - Senator Teresa Ruiz.

- Yep, Senator Teresa Ruiz, supporter, as well, is that we would have to make sure that the private childcare industry which is a big industry also gets acclimated into when we're bringing more into the universal pre-K, so they have to make sure that we keep those jobs in the private sector as well.

- That is Senator Steve Oroho, after 22 years of public service, stepping down.

Again, we do thank you for your service.

We also thank you for every time you've joined us, Senator, to be engaged in a serious substantive policy conversation about the issues that matter most in people's lives.

We wish you all the best in your next chapter and I know you'll be spending more time with your family.

Thank you, Senator.

- Thank you, Steve.

And I hope in the next chapter, I'll still be able to come on your show.

(laughs) - Always.

Stay with us.

We'll be right back.

- [Narrator] Think Tank with Steve Adubato has been a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

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