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Are NJ elections about to get less transparent? 'Ask Governor Murphy' returns Wednesday, March 22.

Louis C. Hochman

and

Nancy Solomon

Published Mar 22, 2023

Modified Mar 24, 2023

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New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, here during the January edition of "Ask Governor Murphy," returns to WNYC's air for the call-in show Wednesday, March 22.

Louis C. Hochman/Gothamist

Louis C. Hochman

and

Nancy Solomon

Published Mar 22, 2023

Modified Mar 24, 2023

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“Ask Governor Murphy” — your chance to present questions to New Jersey’s governor live, on-air — returns Wednesday, March 22 at 7 p.m.

Listen live on WNYC.

“Ask Governor Murphy” is a co-production of WBGO, WNYC and WHYY. It’s hosted by WNYC and Gothamist reporter Nancy Solomon.

How to 'Ask Governor Murphy'

Send us your questions:

Using this Google form before the show.
Tweet at us by using #AskGovMurphy.
Call 844-745-TALK (844-745-8255). to join us on the air.

"Ask Governor Murphy" starts at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, March 22. Listen live here on WNYC.org or on the radio at 93.9 FM.

Elections 'Transparency'

The so-called "Elections Transparency Act" was already being criticized by good-government activists as being about anything but transparency. It guts local pay-to-play rules in favor of generally weaker statewide standards, increases contribution limits to candidates, shortens a statute of limitations on enforcement of campaign finance violations, and lets political parties start "housekeeping" accounts.

It makes elections more transparent in one important way: Any super PAC, 501(c)(4) nonprofit or 501(c)(6c) trade organization — often called "dark money" groups — would have to disclose when it receives more than $7,500 from a donor.

The newest revisions to the law put Murphy right at the center of a fierce political fight.

The state Senate Monday passed a version that gives the governor power to wipe out the state's Election Law Enforcement Commission and replace its four members without seeking Senate confirmation. That would mean the governor could bypass the tradition of "senatorial courtesy" that could let a single state senator hold up a nomination.

The agency's longtime executive director, Jeff Brindle, is suing Murphy — alleging the governor has been trying to force him out of the job. The lawsuit alleges Brindle was pressured to resign by aides who cited an “anti-gay” comment he had made in an email, but refused to provide that email.

In the email, which was obtained by Gothamist, Brindle wrote to an employee in to a message about National Coming Out Day: "Are You coming out? No Lincoln's or Washington's birthday but we can celebrate National Coming Out Day." Politico first reported the contents of the email in February.

The current ELEC commissioners refused to fire Brindle, according to the report. But the law would let Murphy select commissioners loyal to him — and his priorities — without the state Senate serving as a check on his authority.

We'll ask Murphy: What's at the heart of this fight? Should legislators be considering a law that, in many ways, makes campaigns and donors less accountable?

Rethinking policing

In the weeks since Paterson, New Jersey police shot and killed Najee Seabrooks — a 31-year-old man having an apparent mental health crisis in his home — reformers have called for more oversight and even a federal investigation into a department with a scandal-plagued history.

Murphy and the state’s attorney general have touted initiatives such as the ARRIVE program, which pairs police with mental health workers. But many reformers would like police absent entirely from mental health calls. Groups including Black Lives Matter Paterson and the Paterson Healing Collective — a violence interruption group where Seabrooks worked as an interventionist — say the police response unnecessarily escalated the situation.

Some are also calling for the creation of civilian complaint review boards with subpoena power — not just in Paterson, but statewide. The city's mayor promoted civilian review boards in 2019, but the initiative stalled out. The state Supreme Court weakened such a board in Newark in 2020, stripping it of subpoena power, and it would take legislation to allow boards that kind of authority throughout New Jersey.

We'll ask Murphy: What needs to happen to earn and build trust between police and communities?

Here are some other issues we might ask Murphy about:

Murphy expects to allow a corporate business tax surcharge that targets the state's largest companies to expire. He says it's in the interest of creating jobs and making the state more business-friendly; progressive critics say it amounts to a giveaway to corporate interests at the expense of everyday taxpayers.
Whales keep washing up along the New Jersey and New York coasts, and there are calls from some interest groups and Republican lawmakers to investigate any potential connection to the state's plans for offshore wind power generation. The only problem: federal and state regulators say they have absolutely no reason to believe there's any connection, noting the surge in whale deaths goes back more than half a decade, and there isn't yet wind construction off the New Jersey coast. Murphy, meanwhile, is a big proponent of wind power and the state's ambitious plans for wind farms.

Those are just some of the topics on our minds, but we want to hear from you. Ask your question online at this Google form, tweet at us by using #AskGovMurphy, or call 844-745-TALK (844-745-8255) to join us on the air.

This story has been updated to correct the day when the New Jersey State Senate passed the Elections Transparency Act. This story has also been updated to quote the contents of an email Jeff Brindle sent to a fellow ELEC staff member.

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Louis C. Hochman

After about two decades in (mostly) New Jersey-focused commercial print, digital and digital-but-radio-adjacent news, Lou stumbled into member-supported news in early 2021, as the editor and CEO of Montclair Local. There, he (hopes he) expanded enterprise, brought more sophistication to digital storytelling and moved the nonprofit newsroom closer to long-term financial sustainability. He helped lead the Local to its fourth consecutive General Excellence award from the New Jersey Press Association — the NJPA's highest honor with judges noting the paper's work to strip away layers of government opacity, to hold power to account, to make news accessible for more members of the community, to share the stories and concerns of more facets of the community and to tell compelling stories across multiple media. He's excited to continue the same ethic — news as a public service — at NYPR as the New Jersey and suburbs editor, drawing on the extraordinary talents of reporters including Karen Yi and Nancy Solomon. Lou lives in Philly (that commute!) with his partner and their two cats, about whom and about which he speaks incessantly.