New Jersey became the first state to incorporate climate change into K-12 curriculum standards at the start of the 2022-2023 school year. The State Board of Education first announced that they would adopt the new curriculum standards in June 2020, after the curriculum changes were initiated by New Jersey First Lady Tammy Murphy. The updated…
The New Jersey Assembly Commerce and Economic Development Committee on May 19 approved A-3683, a bill that would give tax credits to some small businesses with an aim to offset increasing unemployment insurance taxes following the coronavirus pandemic. The New Jersey Business and Industry Association estimates businesses in the state face about $250 million in…
The filing deadline for candidates running for Congress in New Jersey this year was April 4, 2022. Fifty-five candidates are running for New Jersey’s 12 U.S. House districts, including 20 Democrats and 35 Republicans. That’s 4.58 candidates per district, more than the 4.17 candidates per district in 2020 and the 4.08 in 2018. Here are…
The New Jersey Legislative Reapportionment Commission voted to enact new state legislative district maps on Feb. 18, 2022. The maps will take effect for New Jersey’s 2023 state legislative elections. The commission voted 9-2 to approve the maps. Thomas Kean Jr. (R) and Cosmo A. Cirillo (D) were the two dissenting votes. The New Jersey…
New Jersey Supreme Court Justice Faustino J. Fernandez-Vina is scheduled to retire from the court on Feb. 15 upon reaching the state’s mandatory retirement age of 70 years old. Fernandez-Vina’s replacement will be Gov. Phil Murphy’s (D) third nominee to the seven-member supreme court. In New Jersey, state supreme court justices are selected through direct…
Incumbent Gov. Phil Murphy (D) defeated former Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli (R), becoming the first Democrat to win re-election as governor of New Jersey since 1977. As of 9:00 p.m. ET on Nov. 3, Murphy led Ciattarelli by a margin of 19,440 votes or 0.8 percentage points. If this margin holds, it will be 13 percentage…
Voters in New Jersey decided two constitutional amendments on Nov. 2, approving one and rejecting the other. Proposal 1 was rejected by 56.8% of voters. It would have allowed wagering on all college sports competitions. As of 2021, the state constitution permitted sports betting except on games held in New Jersey and on games featuring…
Paula Jones, Younass Mohamed Barkouch, and Natalia Ioffe won election to the three at-large open seats on the Jersey City Public Schools school board. As of 1:00 a.m. EST, Jones had received 23.6% of the vote, Barkouch had received 19.8%, and Ioffe had received 19.6%. None of the other six candidates had received more than…
On Oct. 7, New Jersey Supreme Court Chief Justice Stuart Rabner named Philip Carchman as the tiebreaker member of the Legislative Reapportionment Commission. Carchman is a former state appellate court judge of the New Jersey Superior Court. In July, Rabner requested tiebreaker proposals from the Democratic and Republican members of the commission, saying: “If there…
Eight state legislative incumbents—five Democrats and three Republicans— lost in primaries in 2022, representing 3.9% of all incumbents who filed for re-election and 20% of all incumbents who faced contested primaries. This was an average number of incumbents defeated in primaries compared to the five odd-year election cycles before it. Sixteen incumbents lost primaries in…