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♪♪ >> From NJ PBS Studios, this is "NJ Spotlight News" with Brianna Vannozzi.

>> Hello, and thanks for joining us.

I'm Joanna Gaggis.

>> We're bringing you a special "NJ Spotlight News" edition of "Reporters' Roundtable," where I'll have a roundup of the top political stories of the week with the help of a panel of local journalists.

"Reporters' Roundtable" starts right now.

(upbeat music) - It's final, the new fiscal year has started.

The state has an approved spending plan.

So what are the priorities and what challenges are still left to be tackled?

Let's get into it.

Hi everyone, I'm Joanna Gaggis.

This is Reporters Roundtable.

We've got a panel of journalists here with us to help break down all that's happened in the last week of New Jersey news.

Let's meet our panelists.

First up, we have Colleen O'Day, our own senior writer and projects editor with NJ Spotlight News.

We've got Jelani Gibson, politics reporter with NJ Advanced Media, and making his Roundtable debut, there is Joey Fox, who recently left New Jersey Globe and is now a reporter with Politico NJ.

Welcome, Joey.

Welcome, Colleen and Jelani.

Well, Governor Sherrill outlined her number one priority as bringing energy costs down, and legislators sent her a package of bills this week, along with the budget bill.

Colleen, I'm going to start with you.

The governor signed those bills this week.

Does this make good on her promise of energy affordability?

Well, she's trying.

I'm not sure how the general public would feel about it, because there's not a great amount of relief yet.

We know that everyone is, all ratepayers are gonna get about a $25 credit on their bills in August.

Those of lower incomes who are in the REAP program, what's known as the REAP program, will get another $150.

The governor also signed a bill that is supposed to lower rates in general or in total by $60 million.

So, you know, that'll trickle down to all ratepayers.

There are some other promised savings and a couple of other bills that she signed, you know, most in particular requiring new artificial intelligence data centers to pay a special fee for their electricity.

They use a lot of electricity as we know, and the idea there is to not have general ratepayers pay, you know, pay for their usage.

So there's a lot there.

There are some more bills she hasn't signed.

Yeah, people feel after they see these.

You talked about the reprogram.

That's the residential energy assistance payment program.

That's for folks who need support.

Yeah, let's get into the bills.

You and I spoke about this earlier in the week, Colleen, but let's get into the bills that she hasn't signed yet that that haven't been sent to her yet.

Sorry, they have been sent to her.

She hasn't signed them yet.

We've got the Balcony Solar Act.

Can we start there?

Yeah, I mean, it's a really interesting idea.

It's something that's pretty common in Europe, where you could buy this just your own kind of do-it-yourself solar kit, put it on your balcony, stick it on your patio in your backyard, plug it into your regular household outlet, and essentially then you are providing some of your own electricity.

So you're drawing less electricity from the grid, which should naturally lower your costs because you're using less.

And then the other one is the Power Act.

This has to do with nuclear energy.

Can you explain what's happening there?

Yeah, the state is supposed to, under this bill, provide greater incentives, essentially go out and try to seek providers of nuclear power, clean nuclear power, we're told, so that that would create a greater supply of electricity.

And if you took your economics 101, supply and demand is often a reason why prices are going up and down.

So if we can get more power onto the grid and into New Jersey homes, the cost should should go down.

Yeah, a lot of this, Colleen, is pretty nuanced, right?

When it comes to energy, it doesn't seem there's a simple answer and not really digestible for the average person who's not following like we are, right?

That's unfortunately true.

There's no easy answer.

You know, when you get a tax rebate, that's pretty simple.

The money comes back to you.

But in the energy world, there are an awful lot of nuances.

All right, Jelani, I want to take a look at one of the major, I wouldn't call it a major spending item, but one of the big talking points that's come out of this whole budget process, there was this supplemental spending bill and a big part of it, about a third, was state aid to Jersey City.

Can you help us, help just explain what happened there, why the governor stepped in with this aid, what the need is in Jersey City?

Yeah, so basically, Jersey City, they received a bunch of transitional aid and the reason why that was taking place is because they blamed its previous mayor, Mayor Fullup for, you know, basically kicking the can down the road.

And so they received the state aid, but it still looks like they'll be looking at some tax increases down the road.

It's just that the tax increases won't be as high in the 20s or 30 percent.

Some people are talking about somewhere around a 15 percent range thus far.

How much of that, though, was a loan that needs to be paid back to the state?

And is there any clarity, any parameters around what the interest rate might be or how long they have to pay back that loan?

Yeah, I mean, it's a large portion of it is going to have to be paid back.

The details of which, you know, I'm still definitely not familiar with, but I suspect that the details of the loan payment are going to come out eventually.

The Republicans have been rather critical of the transitional aid that has been handed out in the past, basically saying that a lot of the transitional aid that is given under the loan repayment terms essentially end up not getting repaid.

But this is a new administration, so we'll just have to see.

- Yeah, we will have to see.

Joey, it looks like you moved to Jersey City just in time for a property tax hike.

Lucky you.

- Cannot wait, cannot wait.

- But switching away from Jersey City for a minute, we finally did see the reemergence of Congressman Tom Kane Jr.

He explained that he's been out because of depression.

You've been covering this race quite a bit.

I want to get a sense from you how that messaging plays out on the campaign trail and how his Democratic opponent, Rebecca Bennett, deals with that as she tries to attack him on his record.

Yeah, so I think the last phrase there that you said is sort of the most important one here is that her whole point here is I'm attacking him on his record.

That was always going to be my plan.

That's what I intend to continue doing.

And the fact that everyone in the district and everyone in the media has been understandably very focused on his health issues for the last three months.

You know, she's wished him well.

She says that he hopes he comes to a full recovery and everything is fine.

But it is not something that she sort of intends to make a centerpiece of the campaign.

But that doesn't mean that she doesn't benefit from it potentially.

And it doesn't mean that she can't have and her allies can't have sort of clever ways of getting at it anyways.

I mean, you see her victory speech right here in the Democratic primary.

She had a line at one point where she was like, we're going to come beat you, Tom Kane Jr.

wherever you are.

This is before he sort of returned and revealed that it kept him away.

And some Democratic outside groups have been spending money on ads that attack Kane for his absence, but also specifically honing in on this one report about how he continued registering stock trading activity during his absence.

There's some pretty big question marks about whether that was actually him.

It doesn't really seem like it was.

It seems like this was more just an automated process that was happening with the stocks that he owns, but does not personally and sort of immediately control.

So I'm sure that Republicans will push back on those attacks, but it's clear that Democrats see a political upside in this, even though the actual content of what he disclosed, that he was suffering from depression and that that's what kept him away is obviously something that most voters of all parties would have a tremendous amount of sort of sympathy and understanding for.

Yeah, you raise a lot of points.

One that I want to hone in on though, it's not just Bennett who's trying to thread the needle.

The Congressman says that he's always been supportive of mental health issues.

Meanwhile, Democrats are saying, "Hey, you're the party that made all these cuts to Medicaid that eligibility is now reduced for millions of Americans."

How does he navigate those waters, and is he ripe for Democratic criticism there?

Yeah, I mean, I think that's a complicated question that he has to address.

Shortly after returning, he introduced a bill that would- it's sort of a wonky bill, but it was related to mental health and keeping mental health insurance coverage on the same- like in parity with physical health coverage.

So this is clearly something that he intends to lean into from a policy perspective.

But Democrats, you know, aren't completely off base when they say Republicans in general, when they're in power have tried to, you know, limit government spending in healthcare, have made major cuts to these programs.

So what exactly are we doing here with a Congressman who, I mean, what some Democrats, not necessarily Brecca Bennett, but what some Democrats I've seen say in general is, this is a congressman who went on four months of paid sick leave without explaining to his boss or his constituents what was going on.

And Cain would have a more sort of positive spin on that for obvious reasons.

But that is fundamentally what we're kind of talking about here and so then that leads to attacks of, well, do Republicans support mental health coverage then?

Do Republicans support paid leave?

You know, where does the line get drawn here?

- Yeah, it's interesting how the voters are gonna respond to this.

Like you said, this is an issue that does draw a lot of sympathy from folks, but I've seen a whole lot of chatter online too, from others who say, "Look, I've struggled "with mental health, with depression, with anxiety, "and I couldn't take four months off of work "and just step away from my job."

I'm curious how you think this race is going to play out from the voter perspective.

Obviously, this is a majority Republican district, and there's going to be a lot of national money poured in here.

What can you give us in terms of how you think this is going to go?

I think that if you talk to both parties, they'll tell you the same thing, and it's probably basically correct, that this was always going to be a race that was fought on, you know, what Republicans in Congress have been doing for the past year, what Donald Trump has been doing, and whether Democrats present sort of a better vision or a vision that voters like more.

That was always going to make the race competitive.

This district is just a very closely divided district.

And Rebecca Bennett is a pretty strong candidate who's already raised a lot of money and made a pretty clear case for herself.

So you sort of have a floor here of, okay, this district is always going to be at the front of the playing field.

This is probably always going to be New Jersey's, like, hottest election of 2026.

How much does this whole four-month absence change about that?

It certainly made it a more prominent race.

in the minds of the media.

And, you know, as you see coverage in the fall of the race, it's going to have the extra sort of side note of, oh, by the way, there was this odd thing that happened and is continuing to happen in this district.

There's this footnote for the Congressman.

But I do suspect that voters will ultimately approach it in a similar way as they would have approached it anyways, which is a referendum on Republicans and Trump and Democrats.

Yeah.

Colleen, speaking of President Trump, he denied $227 million in disaster relief aid to four states.

All of those four states have Democratic leadership.

What can you tell us about that aid and his reason for denying the disaster relief funds?

Yeah, so New Jersey was one of the states we were looking for about $84 million to compensate for damage losses during the February 22nd 23rd.

I think it was snowstorm.

It was deemed a blizzard, at least in parts of the state by the National Weather Service.

At least 200,000 people were without power for part of the time.

We were told that the threshold for qualifying was about $18 million, a little more than $18 million in damage.

So certainly we met that.

I haven't seen a reason for why the money was not given.

But as you pointed out, this happened just a day or two after six Republican led states got disaster relief money.

And to note Politico back in March, the last time I guess that they had done an examination of this, found that this is the most times Democratic states have been denied money in about 47 years.

Republican states have been getting this disaster relief money, at least since Trump is back in office at a rate of about 89%.

Whereas for the Democratic-led states, it's more like 23% of aid requests are being approved.

So, I mean, it certainly sounds like politics is playing a role, but we don't actually know what the president's decision was in this case.

The White House says that they are not playing politics, but in the same breath that the president approved the money for the Republican-led states, he did talk about the politics of those states and of the leaders of those states.

What does this lack of aid, though, mean for New Jersey?

I mean, it means that local and maybe state property taxpayers are gonna have to foot the bill for for the damage.

There's nobody else to to pay for it.

And so it's, you know, we're already a high cost state.

Certainly in at every opportunity, we try to or the state officials try to get reimbursement, get federal help when you know these these awful weather events or you know other tragedies happen and that's not going to help local taxpayers at this point.

I'm going to ask you to prognosticate a bit but do you see this as an issue that could end up in the courts?

I do yes because it seems like everything that happens these days ends up in the courts.

But you know certainly it seems that there is a case to be made if if there's not a good reason you know a valid reason given for why you're being denied this.

I forget the number that we're up to in terms of lawsuits against the Trump administration.

But I mean it's in the dozens.

And I can certainly see this becoming another one.

Jelani we're looking back at the time when we had winter weather and blizzards.

But this week brought us some pretty nasty weather.

There was a massive heat wave that led to at least twenty nine suspected deaths.

State investigators and health officials are still looking into that.

But in the throes of and flooding I should say flooding that lasted throughout the week.

During that heat wave though I want to look at Delaney Hall where there were reports from inside that AC units were broken and detainees were sitting in 100 degree weather.

What can you tell us there?

Yeah so apparently an AC unit was broken.

Detainees did mention that the AC unit was broken and then immediately the activist organizations got to work in contacting federal officials.

The ICE facility itself said that it basically moved people from that unit into other units with AC.

So now it's just essentially a monitoring game and seeing whether or not those those things not only happen but to also make sure that they consistently happen is what those activist groups and also what congressional officials are focusing on as part of their oversight.

Another disturbing report from Delaney Hall.

We've been hearing reports, allegations of sexual abuse inside.

Now a story has come to light of a Colombian immigrant who was seeking asylum in the U.S., was denied bond and was detained.

He says he was raped in the early hours of June 25th.

What more can you tell us about his case and where he is right now?

Yeah, so I mean immediately when, you know, when the complaint was made, he was essentially transferred.

But this transfer that happens is also a part of a larger running complaint by both congressional officials and activist organizations that when anybody at the facility makes a complaint, whether it's for sexual assault or food or any other conditions at the facility, that people are immediately transferred, which essentially makes the oversight aspect and the interview of any investigation a lot more difficult.

He was, I believe, taken to University Hospital after the allegation DHS says that they conducted an investigation in the hospital setting and that there were follow-up conversations with him afterwards, but they do not deny that he was transferred.

I know that Jelani, you've been covering that a whole lot and I expect we'll hear more as that case develops or doesn't.

Joey, we're staying, I guess, on topic in a way.

We see this week Nadine Menendez, her her sentencing date is today.

What's the latest there?

She tried to have it moved.

What happened?

What did the judge say?

Yeah, this was sort of the latest in a long, long saga that began right when the indictment came down of the Menendez is trying to delay every single part of this court case.

Bob and Nadine Menendez both filed motions to throw out the charges that they were initially charged with and then delay their sentencing.

This one had a more specific cause behind it, which was Nadine Menendez's recovery from a breast cancer diagnosis.

But I think that I mean, I kind of got I wasn't there in the courtroom personally, but I kind of got the sense that it's been the same judge, Sidney Stein from the Southern District of New York overseeing this entire thing.

And having now batted down, I don't know, dozens of requests by Menendez and the Menendez's legal teams to delay or throw out or otherwise alter this proceeding, that he's a little bit done with that.

So the attempt to delay the sentencing was not successful, as have most of the prior attempts by the Menendez's to delay every part of this.

So her legal defense said that her treatment caused significant disabling symptoms and unrelenting pain.

The judge did say that there are other folks who have been imprisoned who have gotten medical treatment and that that treatment can be available for her.

She was sentenced to 54 months in prison and I know she's got more than $900,000 in fines that she needs to pay.

We'll keep an eye on whether or not she appeals that timeline of her sentencing.

Colleen, I want to switch back to the budget for a minute.

The business community, not all too happy with what they've seen laid out in Governor Sherrill's budget.

She, of course, along the campaign trail and early on in her tenure, has said she is a pro-business, business friendly governor.

What are we hearing in terms of some of their concerns, what this budget does not do for them?

Yeah, you know, so I think the business community is saying that while there are some good things in the budget, they appreciate that there were fewer Christmas tree items or pork add-ons, however you want to call it, in the budget.

The budget is really balanced on the backs of businesses because the only tax increases in the budget are those that are affecting businesses.

And you know they say that there was another report that came out I believe it was this week that found New Jersey's business friendliness climate is again among the lowest if not the lowest in the nation and that that's really not a way to to boost the economy.

Yeah we're hearing that there are New Jersey was just ranked by CNBC as last of all the states for business friendliness and so I know a lot of business and industry folks are trying to bring that stat to the governor and say look we need to do more as we move forward.

Jelani not a lot of time left but can we look for a second at one of the Democratic candidates who ran against Sheryl in the primary did not go very far.

Sean Spiller, what can you tell us about his national aspirations and where he ended up?

Well, I mean, it didn't didn't end up winning.

So it's not really clear what his next moves, you know, are, so to speak.

You know, he's, he's, let me let me jump in here.

He did, he did just try to become the head of the National Education Association.

So I just want to set that context for our audience.

But go ahead.

Yeah, yeah, he Yeah, he lost, he lost that.

And in the wake of losing that everyone's wondering what it is that he's going to do.

Some inside sources have pointed to him potentially being, you know, a lobbyist and doing advocacy and everything like that.

He was a candidate that that came with, with criticism and a mobilization of criticism against him.

And so we'll just have to wait and see whether or not he stays in politics or whether he goes into the private advocacy sector.

- Yeah, some of that criticism came from the fact that NJEA funds that came from teachers were used to fund his campaign.

And I should say that the NJEA has been a long time underwriter of NJ Spotlight News.

But definitely still the criticism remains folks trying to look back and say, "Hey, look at how this happened.

"There's a problem here."

Has that gained any traction though, Jelani?

Well, it may have played something of a role in the recent election that he just tried to win.

It was something that they were definitely pushing out during, it was something that his critics were definitely pushing out during the election.

It was something that his critics were definitely bringing up during the election.

So it would appear to me that whatever public office he attempts to go for, it will continue to be something that his critics pull up.

This was something that was also pulled up when he was running for governor.

And so this just seems to that'll continue to follow him for quite some time in every aspect of going for public office.

- That definitely could be the case.

Joey, I know it's early on, we're still in the first year of the Sherrill administration, but already folks are being named or perhaps behind the scenes lining up to run against her in the 29 election.

What can you tell us about who is being considered or who might be a front runner at this early stage?

- Well, what I'll say to begin with is the state Republicans have had a little bit of a frozen bench for a while now, because you obviously had Chris Christie run for re-election in 2013.

You had his Lieutenant Governor, Kim Guadagno, as sort of the standard bearer in 2017.

And then Jack Cittarelli kind of took over the Republican Party apparatus in both '21 and '25.

So it's been since 2009 really, when you've had a situation where you don't necessarily have like an obvious candidate waiting in the wings to take up the mantle.

And so the shortlist is pretty widely varied and also at this point really hard to predict.

I mean the New Jersey Globe recently did.

Give us a couple names, just a couple seconds left Joey.

Give us a couple names.

Okay yeah I mean so there was Mike Testa was one name that was mentioned.

Holly Schepizu.

It's a lot of state legislators, a lot of prominent Republicans, but this far out we just have no idea who might catch lightning in a bottle, who will still be relevant in around two years time when it's going to start picking up.

Yeah, and of course it does sometimes take this long to garner the support behind the scenes, but I know you'll be on it.

Colleen, Jelani, Joey, can't thank you all enough for being with us today.

You can follow me on Instagram @johannagaggisNJ and go ahead and scan that QR code right there on your screen to see more episodes of Roundtable.

That's going to do it for us.

I'm Joanna Gaggis.

For the entire team here at NJ Spotlight News, thanks for being with us.

Have a great weekend.

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