Byron Baer, Father of ‘Sunshine Law,’ Dies at 77

Byron Baer, Father of ‘Sunshine Law,’ Dies at 77

Byron M. Baer, a Bergen County legislator for 33 years and father of the state’s “Sunshine Law,” died June 24. He was 77.

Baer was elected to the Assembly in 1971 and served in the Senate from 1994 until 2005, when he resigned due to declining health.

Baer spent time in a Mississippi jail in the 1960s with the Freedom Riders, activists who rode buses to southern states to protest racial discrimination. As a lawmaker, he championed legislation to improve worker safety and consumer protections; he sponsored the bill creating the Office of Child Advocate; and he spotlighted living conditions of migrant workers in southern New Jersey.

His hallmark legislation – passed more than 30 years ago – was the state’s “Sunshine Law,” also referred to as the Open Public Meetings Act, which requires government bodies to conduct business in public.