TRENTON Amid a wave of New Jersey government corruption scandals, Republicans on Monday demanded an immediate special voting session on long-proposed but never-enacted ethics reform bills. Gov. Jon S. Corzine, meanwhile, signed an order implementing sweeping new reforms in the state’s many independent authorities. The reforms will revise bidding, contracting, spending and hiring amid the agencies Corzine described as the state’s “invisible government.” “We’ve had far too many breakdowns in a number of these areas and it is time to act,” Corzine said. The Republican demand comes as lawmakers devote most attention to property tax reform efforts, but Assembly Republicans said combatting corruption is just as important. “Taxpayers should understand that we will never have true property tax reform until we clean up political corruption,” said Assembly Minority Leader Alex DeCroce, R-Morris. “The bottom line is that these ethical scandals will not stop until the Legislature takes a comprehensive approach to overhauling our ethics laws.” Since 2002, about 200 government officials in New Jersey have been indicted by federal and state authorities. In recent weeks Zulima Farber resigned as attorney general after a review determined she broke ethics rules, Democratic powerbroker and former state Sen. John Lynch and councilmen in Camden and Atlantic City pleaded guilty to corruption charges and corruption allegations have been a prominent theme in the current U.S. Senate campaign. Sen. Wayne Bryant, D-Camden, stepped down as Senate budget chairman on Monday after a federal report found he got a no-show job at a state medical school he helped get millions in taxpayer money. Assembly Republicans outlined an 11-point ethics plan that they said has been blocked by majority Democrats. They said ethics bills passed in 2004 have done little to stem corruption and are replete with loopholes. Assembly Majority Leader Bonnie Watson Coleman, D-Mercer, said she needed to review the Republican plan, but noted Democratic efforts and said more will follow. She described the Republican plan as a “warmed-over stew of existing legislative measures that were cobbled together for politically exploitative purposes six weeks before Election Day.” “It’s the height of absurdity for Assembly Republicans to point fingers on ethics reform,” Coleman said. She said a special session on ethics reforms doesn’t seem necessary. “We’re going through a very important special session right now and we need to complete that work,” Coleman said. Legislators have given themselves until Nov. 15 to devise property tax reform legislation. Republicans said New Jerseyans don’t want to wait. “We can’t solve the property tax problem without solving the honesty problem,” said Assemblywoman Amy Handlin, R-Monmouth. Corzine said he hoped many ethics reforms can be included in the property tax reform recommendations, including creating a state comptroller and reforming public worker benefits. “I hope there’s a whole host of ethics reforms actually taken in the context of property tax reform,” Corzine said. His order requires state authorities to establish bidding procedures, award most contracts to the low bidder, boost financial reporting, publicly advertise all contracts and work with state economic growth officials to coordinate spending. The Republican-supported bills, among other things, propose barring public officials from holding more than one elected office, prohibiting public officials from receiving late-career salary increases that boost taxpayer-funded pensions, expanding a state anti-nepotism law, requiring unpaid suspensions of indicted public officials and mandatory jail time and full pension forfeiture for public officials convicted of corruption. “We need to clean up and police our own house,” said Assemblyman Richard Merkt, R-Morris.