Murphy, Philip D (1957- )

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    NJ Transit Riders to Get a Fare Holiday After Summer of Delays

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    After a spate of breakdowns that caused long delays, an unscheduled “fare holiday” on the statewide transit network will start on Aug. 26.After struggling to provide reliable service to commuters this spring and summer, New Jersey Transit is giving its customers free rides for a week, Gov. Philip D. Murphy announced on Thursday.The unusual “fare holiday” on all modes of the agency’s statewide transit network, which will run from Aug. 26 through Sept. 2, comes less than two months after New Jersey Transit raised all of its fares by 15 percent. The increase received heavy criticism from customers and elected officials.Mr. Murphy and state transportation officials argued that the fare increase was necessary to close a gap of more than $100 million in the agency’s budget. Additional annual increases of 3 percent are scheduled.Mr. Murphy, a Democrat, said in a statement that the fare holiday was a “thank you” to the agency’s loyal customers for enduring a period when “transit service has not consistently met their expectations — or our own.”During an appearance on “Good Day New York” on Fox 5 New York, the governor said, more plainly: “It’s been a really ugly summer. I think June was one of the worst months we’ve had.”Critics immediately took to social media to carp about the choice of the week leading up to Labor Day, a time when many commuters are on vacation.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Who Will Replace Bob Menendez in the Senate?

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      Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey announced that he would resign in August. Gov. Philip D. Murphy will choose someone to serve the remainder of his term.Democrats have spent months engrossed by the slow-motion downfall of Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey. But no sooner had he announced his resignation on Tuesday than their focus jumped to another question: Who would serve out his Senate term?Party leaders had already been swapping names for weeks. Among them are a trio of prominent Black women; New Jersey’s first lady; and Representative Andy Kim, the Democratic nominee in November’s general election to replace Mr. Menendez on a more permanent basis.The decision will fall to Gov. Philip D. Murphy, a Democrat in his second term, and advisers said he was winnowing his own list.Here is what we know so far:Menendez will vacate his seat in AugustMr. Menendez, 70, has been under intense pressure to resign since a Manhattan jury convicted him last week on all counts in a sweeping bribery scheme involving Egyptian intelligence, bars of gold and a Qatari sheikh.On Tuesday, Mr. Menendez relented rather than face a possible vote to expel him from the Senate. He told Mr. Murphy in a letter that he would resign effective Aug. 20, giving the governor about a month to line up a replacement.Whoever Mr. Murphy selects will serve until Mr. Menendez’s current term, his third, expires on Jan. 3.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Four Takeaways From Biden’s Post-Debate Interview

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      He downplayed. He denied. He dismissed.President Biden’s first television interview since his poor debate performance last week was billed as a prime-time opportunity to reassure the American people that he still has what it takes to run for, win and hold the nation’s highest office.But Mr. Biden, with more than a hint of hoarseness in his voice, spent much of the 22 minutes resisting a range of questions that George Stephanopoulos of ABC News had posed — about his competence, about taking a cognitive test, about his standing in the polls.The president on Friday did not struggle to complete his thoughts the way he did at the debate. But at the same time he was not the smooth-talking senator of his youth, or even the same elder statesman whom the party entrusted four years ago to defeat former President Donald J. Trump.Instead, it was a high-stakes interview with an 81-year-old president whose own party is increasingly doubting him yet who sounded little like a man with any doubts about himself.Here are four takeaways:Biden downplays the debate as a one-time flub.The interview was Mr. Biden’s longest unscripted appearance in public since his faltering debate performance. The delay has had his allies on Capitol Hill and beyond confused about what was keeping the president cloistered behind closed doors — or depending upon teleprompters — for so long.The eight-day lag has seen the first members of Congress call for him to step aside and donors demand that the party consider switching candidates. It also heightened the scrutiny of every word Mr. Biden said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Tammy Murphy Wins Crucial Support in Her Bid for U.S. Senate

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      The first lady of New Jersey won the endorsement of Democrats in Bergen County on Monday night, beating her closest primary rival, Representative Andy Kim.Tammy Murphy, the first lady of New Jersey, gained crucial support in her bid for the U.S. Senate on Monday night, winning the Democratic convention vote in Bergen County by a decisive margin.It was Ms. Murphy’s first victory at a convention decided by delegates using secret ballots, and it was considered a must-win matchup in her primary battle against Representative Andy Kim, a third-term South Jersey Democrat.The vote was 738 for Ms. Murphy, 419 for Mr. Kim.Over the past month, Mr. Kim, 41, won the first five county conventions in New Jersey that permitted delegates to select a nominee, including in Monmouth County, where Ms. Murphy and her husband, Gov. Philip D. Murphy, have lived for 25 years.With the support of Mr. Murphy, who has nearly two years left in his term, Ms. Murphy, 58, racked up early endorsements from a raft of influential Democratic officials even before hitting the campaign trail.But she has been battered by claims of nepotism and has struggled to gain support among rank-and-file Democrats as she makes her case that she should be their nominee to run for a coveted seat now held by Senator Robert Menendez, a Democrat who has been charged with taking bribes. Mr. Menendez has not ruled out running for re-election, but he has been abandoned by most Democratic leaders and has almost no path to victory.Bergen County, in northern New Jersey, is the state’s most populous region. It has more Democrats than any county other than Essex, which includes Newark, the state’s largest city.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Talk About Abortion, Don’t Talk About Trump: Governors Give Biden Advice

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      At an annual gathering in Arizona, Democratic governors offered a series of explanations for the president’s political struggles and suggested ideas for selling voters on his re-election.America’s Democratic governors brag about booming local economies, preside over ribbon-cuttings of projects paid for with new federal legislation and have successfully framed themselves as defenders of abortion rights and democracy.Almost all of them are far more popular in their home states than the Democratic president they hope to re-elect next year.While President Biden is mired in the political doldrums of low approval ratings and a national economy that voters are sour on, Democratic governors are riding high, having won re-election in red-state Kentucky last month and holding office in five of the seven most important presidential battleground states.The governors, like nearly all prominent Democrats, are publicly projecting confidence: In interviews and conversations with eight governors at their annual winter gathering at the Arizona Biltmore in Phoenix over the weekend, they expressed on-the-record optimism that Mr. Biden would win re-election.But also like many Democrats, some privately acknowledged fears that former President Donald J. Trump could win a rematch with Mr. Biden. They also said that Mr. Biden, at 81 years old, might not compare well with a younger Republican like Nikki Haley, the former United Nations ambassador, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida or even former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey.The governors offered a series of explanations for Mr. Biden’s political struggles and supplied free advice. Here are six ways they believe he can raise his standing ahead of next year’s election.Talk more about abortion.Mr. Biden barely says the word abortion in his public statements, a fact that frustrates fellow governors hoping he can, as many of them have, use anger over the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision overturning Roe v. Wade to improve his political fortunes.“We should talk about all the threats to women’s health care, including abortion, and use that word specifically,” said Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan. “We should be talking about it like that because Americans are awake. They are angry that this right could be stripped away and we are the only ones fighting for it.”On abortion politics, Gov. Phil Murphy of New Jersey acknowledged that “it’s widely known that this is probably an uncomfortable reality for him,” given that Mr. Biden, a practicing Catholic, once voted in the Senate to let states overturn Roe v. Wade and his stance on abortion rights has evolved over the years.Mr. Murphy said Mr. Biden must be forthright about discussing the likelihood that Republicans would aim to enact new abortion restrictions if they win control of the federal government in 2024 and emphasizing the Democratic position that decisions about abortion should be left to women and their doctors.“That has to be laid out in a much more crystal-clear, explicit, affirmative way,” he said.Stop talking about Trump.The governors broadly agreed that Mr. Trump would be the Republican nominee. They don’t love Mr. Biden’s recent turn to focus more attention on his predecessor.“You’ve got to run for something and not against someone,” said Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky. That is easy for Mr. Beshear to say — he is among the nation’s most popular governors and just won re-election in a deep-red state.Gov. Laura Kelly of Kansas urged the president to stop talking about Mr. Trump altogether. Be positive, she said, and let others carry the fight to Mr. Trump.“If I were in Biden’s shoes, I would not talk about Trump,” she said. “I would let other people talk about Trump.”Appeal to moderate Republicans and independents.Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota also said Mr. Biden needed to adopt some of Mr. Trump’s penchant for bragging.“He’s been modest for so long, to watch him do it now feels a little uncomfortable,” Mr. Walz said.Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina said his constituents were hoping Republicans would nominate someone other than Mr. Trump.Mr. Murphy said hopefully that Republicans supporting someone else in their primary might stay home or wind up voting for Mr. Biden next year.“What if Trump is the nominee? What’s the behavior pattern among the Haley, DeSantis and Chris Christie supporters? Where do they go?” Mr. Murphy said. “I find it hard to believe that a majority of them are going to Trump.”Tell people what Biden’s done.Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, fresh off a prime-time Fox News debate against Mr. DeSantis that seemed meant in part to elevate the ambitious Mr. Newsom to the role of Mr. Biden’s leading defender, lamented “the gap between performance and perception.”He was one of several governors who said their constituents felt good about their lives but were pessimistic about the state of the country.“People feel pretty good about their states, feel pretty good about their communities, even their own lived lives,” Mr. Newsom said. “You ask, ‘How are you doing?’ They say, ‘We’re doing great, but this country’s going to hell.’”Mr. Newsom said Mr. Biden’s biggest problem was that he had not been able to communicate to voters that he is responsible for improvements in their lives.“People just don’t know the record,” he said. “They don’t hear it. They never see it.”In North Carolina, which last week became the 40th state to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, Mr. Cooper said people who are newly eligible for health care were not likely to credit Mr. Biden or White House policies.“The people who are getting it don’t really associate it with anybody other than finally being able to get health care for themselves,” he said.Focus more attention on legislative achievements.The governors all seemed to agree that they would like to see Mr. Biden spend more time cutting ribbons and attending groundbreakings for new projects paid for by infrastructure, climate and semiconductor funding he signed into law.“I would be doing those morning, noon and night,” Mr. Murphy said.Ms. Kelly of Kansas, who won her red state twice, said Mr. Biden should announce the opening of new projects and factories because she said it would focus attention away from his age.“I would spend a lot of time doing those just because they’re relatively easy and they are energizing,” she said.And Mr. Walz, whom his fellow governors voted the new chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, said Mr. Biden’s challenge would be explaining to people the future benefits of investments being made now.“The problem is going to be, it’s going to take us 20 years to build all this infrastructure out,” Mr. Walz said. “Whether they see it within the next 11 months or not, that’s what we need to tell the story.”Find some Democrats with enthusiasm.No governor at the Phoenix gathering expressed more desire to give Mr. Biden another term in the White House than Mr. Newsom, who used a 40-minute chat with reporters to take a victory lap from his debate with Mr. DeSantis, a ratings bonanza for the Fox News host Sean Hannity that doubled as the largest audience of the California governor’s political career.Mr. Newsom, who since the middle of last year has evolved from a friendly critic of Mr. Biden’s political messaging to one of his most enthusiastic supporters, said his fellow governors needed to perform like old-school politicians who could deliver a constituency for an ally through force of will by activating supporters to follow political commands.“We, the Democratic Party, need to get out there on behalf of the leader of the Democratic Party, Joe Biden, and make the case and do it with pride,” Mr. Newsom said. “We’ve got to wind this thing up.”The task may be difficult. Mr. Cooper described “a general malaise and frustration” that has Americans blaming Mr. Biden for forces often beyond his control.But Mr. Newsom said that if others were wary of carrying the torch for Mr. Biden in the next year, he was not afraid to do so all by himself.“If no one’s showing up doing stuff, I’m going to show up,” he said. “I can’t take it. I can’t take the alternative. I can’t even conceive it.” More

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      Tammy Murphy Is Running for NJ Senate, in Hopes of Replacing Menendez

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      Ms. Murphy is likely to face at least three Democratic primary challengers — and possibly Senator Bob Menendez, who is accused of accepting bribes.Tammy Murphy, the wife of Gov. Philip D. Murphy of New Jersey, announced on Wednesday that she was running as a Democrat for the U.S. Senate seat now held by the state’s embattled senior senator, Robert Menendez, who has been charged with accepting bribes.Ms. Murphy, 58, is a first-time candidate for public office who describes herself on tax forms as a homemaker. During her husband’s six years as governor, she has been an active first lady who has worked to improve the state’s high rates of maternal and infant mortality and to expand instruction about climate change in public schools.Before she and Mr. Murphy married, 30 years ago, Ms. Murphy worked as a financial analyst, and she has since volunteered on nonprofit and philanthropic boards.Ms. Murphy has been preparing for more than a month to run for the Senate, and she announced her candidacy on Wednesday with the release of a nearly four-minute video.“We owe it to our kids to do better,” she says, speaking directly to the camera and presenting herself primarily as a mother of four who, when given the chance, used her platform as first lady to advocate for improved pregnancy outcomes.“Right now, Washington is filled with too many people more interested in getting rich or getting on camera,” she says as a photo of Mr. Menendez flashes in the background, “than getting things done for you.”Ms. Murphy already has at least two Democratic primary opponents: Representative Andy Kim, who has represented South Jersey in Congress since 2019, and Larry Hamm, a political activist and second-time Senate candidate who leads the People’s Organization for Progress. Patricia Campos-Medina, a left-leaning labor leader who runs the Worker Institute at Cornell University, said on Tuesday that she was also preparing to enter the race.Mr. Menendez has pleaded not guilty to federal charges of bribery and plotting to be an agent of Egypt, and he has said that he will not resign from the Senate.He has not ruled out seeking re-election, but if he does compete for the Democratic nomination, he will face several practical challenges.A federal judge has scheduled his trial to start a month before the June primary, and he has been abandoned by nearly every leading Democrat in the state, including Mr. Murphy, leaving him an extremely difficult path to victory.Mr. Menendez said Ms. Murphy’s entry into the race proved that the governor, who was among the first officials to call for his resignation, had a “personal, vested interest” in doing so.“They believe they have to answer to nobody,” Mr. Menendez said about the Murphys in a written statement. “But I am confident that the people of New Jersey will push back against this blatant maneuver at disenfranchisement.”Ms. Murphy, in Wednesday’s video, called her role as New Jersey’s first lady the “honor of my life.” But she has also earned a reputation as an aggressive campaign fund-raiser and now has seven months to introduce herself to voters as a candidate in her own right.She is running as a Democrat for one of the most coveted political prizes in the country, yet she is a relative newcomer to the party. Voting records show she regularly voted in Republican primaries until 2014, three years before her husband was elected governor of a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans by nearly one million voters.Ms. Murphy continued to vote in Republican primaries even while Mr. Murphy served as finance chairman of the Democratic National Committee and as the ambassador to Germany, appointed by former President Barack Obama.She declined an interview request, and her aides have refused to discuss her reasons for changing parties as a 49-year-old.But Mr. Kim said Ms. Murphy’s voting history raised valid questions, particularly in a Democratic primary.“I think she needs to explain that,” Mr. Kim, 41, said Monday in an interview.Mr. Menendez also took a swipe at the first lady’s changed party affiliation.“While Tammy Murphy was a card-carrying Republican for years,” he said, “I was working to elect Democrats up and down the ballot.”Mr. Kim, a national security adviser during the Obama administration, entered the Senate race a day after Mr. Menendez and his wife, Nadine Menendez, were accused of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes in exchange for the senator’s efforts to steer aid and weapons to Egypt and help allies avoid criminal prosecution.Mr. Kim also released a campaign video this week, in which he is shown talking to a group of disenchanted voters.“I believe that the opposite of democracy is apathy,” Mr. Kim, the father of 6- and 8-year-old boys, said to explain his motivation for running.“I look at all the craziness in the world,” he said, adding, “I don’t want my kids to grow up in a broken America.”Mr. Kim, who gained national prominence after being photographed clearing debris from the floor of the Capitol after the Jan. 6 attack, raised nearly $1 million in a single week after announcing his candidacy, and he said he was continuing to raise money at a brisk clip.To win, he will most likely need to capture the imaginations of voters without significant help from New Jersey’s Democratic Party leaders, who hold sway over the so-called county line — ballot placement that is often considered tantamount to victory.New Jersey has a unique election system that enables Democratic and Republican county leaders to anoint favored candidates in each race on a primary ballot and bracket them together in a vertical or horizontal column.Studies have shown that being chosen increases a candidate’s likelihood of victory by as much as 38 percentage points.“It’s a rigged game,” said Julia Sass Rubin, an associate dean of the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University who has researched the influence of the county line in federal and legislative races. New Jersey’s Working Families Alliance and several former candidates have filed a federal lawsuit that they hope will lead a court to overturn the practice. “The election is almost over before it starts,” Brett Pugach, a lawyer who brought the federal suit, said about the ballot system, which he believes is unconstitutional.But in the meantime, the governor and Ms. Murphy have been busily courting Democratic leaders in the state’s heavily populated counties nearest New York City and Philadelphia, according to three people familiar with the conversations who did not want to be identified saying anything that could be considered critical of the governor.Several of those chairmen work as lobbyists with significant business before the state or hold lucrative state jobs, limiting the likelihood that they might openly oppose a governor with two years left in his term — and control over the next two multibillion-dollar state budgets.Ms. Campos-Medina, who emigrated from El Salvador as a 14-year-old, said it was these “back-room deals among political elites” that had pushed her to run.“The line disenfranchises women and, in particular, women of color and doesn’t encourage voter participation,” Ms. Campos-Medina, 50, said.After Ms. Murphy’s announcement, a coalition of 26 left-leaning organizations in New Jersey signed a letter criticizing the first lady’s candidacy.“We are offended that the corruption from Senator Menendez, who is under indictment and who has still refused to resign, is going to be replaced with nepotism,” the coalition, Fair Vote Alliance, wrote.Whoever wins the Democratic primary will square off next November against a Republican hoping to break the Democrats’ four-decade Senate winning streak. There are at least two Republicans interested in vying for the nomination: Christine Serrano Glassner, the mayor of Mendham Borough, and Shirley Maia-Cusick, a member of the Federated Republican Women of Hunterdon County.If one of the women is successful, she would make history as the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate from New Jersey.Ms. Murphy would also be the first spouse of a sitting governor to be elected to the Senate in the United States. And she would also be likely to become the fifth member of New Jersey’s congressional delegation with relatives who have held prominent political positions, joining Representatives Tom Kean Jr., Rob Menendez Jr., Donald Norcross and Donald M. Payne Jr., all of whom are Democrats.Ross K. Baker, a Rutgers University professor who has studied Congress for 50 years, said New Jersey’s county-line system contributed to what he called “political dynasties.”“It’s fundamentally undemocratic,” Professor Baker said. “Politics shouldn’t be a family business.” More

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      N.J. Legislative Races on the Ballot

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      Despite being outnumbered by nearly a million voters, Republicans hope to cut into Democratic majorities in the state Legislature on Election Day.The news landed like a bombshell a week before New Jersey’s pivotal legislative races: Orsted, a Danish company that had been hired to build two wind farms off the South Jersey coast, was abruptly abandoning the project.Overnight, a linchpin of Gov. Philip D. Murphy’s clean energy plan vanished, unleashing finger-pointing among his fellow Democrats, who are fighting to retain control of the Legislature, and I-told-you-sos from Republicans, who had opposed the offshore-wind projects.Orsted cited broad economic forces, including higher building costs, as the reason for pulling out, but it retained the rights to the seabed lease, preventing New Jersey from immediately bringing in another company to develop the site. “The Republicans are going to do a victory lap,” said Jeff Tittel, a longtime New Jersey environmental advocate who supports the development of offshore wind farms, “while the Democrats have egg on their face.”In 2021, with Mr. Murphy at the top of the ticket, Republicans gained seven seats in the Legislature, which Democrats control, when voters, angry about the state’s Covid-19 mandates, turned out in droves. Stephen M. Sweeney, a Democrat who was State Senate president at the time, lost to Edward Durr Jr., a conservative, first-time candidate.Republicans hope to tally further gains when voters go to the polls on Tuesday, as Democrats try to recover lost ground. Some Republicans have speculated about the possibility of flipping either the Assembly or the Senate, something that has not occurred in two decades and that would require virtually every competitive race to cut their way.All 120 legislative seats are on the ballot. Democrats hold a 46-34 majority in the Assembly and a 25-15 advantage in the Senate.“We’re close enough to the target,” Alexandra Wilkes, a New Jersey Republican Party spokeswoman, said about winning a majority, “but we have to hit the darts right every time.”There are highly competitive races in South Jersey, in legislative Districts 3 and 4; along the Jersey Shore, in District 11; near Princeton, in District 16; and in Bergen County’s District 38.A lawsuit filed on Thursday, and the accusations that underpin it, illustrate how high each party considers the stakes.In the suit, filed in Atlantic County, Republicans asked a judge to take steps to blunt what they said was a dirty-tricks campaign by Democrats in the fourth legislative district. The complaint cited “phantom candidates,” whom the plaintiffs argued were on the ballot solely to siphon off Republican votes.On Friday, a judge blocked future spending by a group funding the Democratic candidates. Ms. Wilkes said Republicans were pleased the court had recognized the “egregious violation of the public trust.”Much of the campaign rhetoric has involved cultural wedge issues, including abortion rights and whether schools should be required to tell parents about how students express their gender. State policies meant to make residents less dependent on gas-powered stoves and vehicles have also been used by Republicans to energize their base. Orsted’s announcement added force to that rallying cry.Assembly Republicans produced a mocking video. Senator Michael Testa, a South Jersey Republican who represents shore communities where opposition to wind energy is strongest, called the Orsted deal a “boondoggle.”Voting by mail began over a month ago, and early machine voting has taken place over the past two weeks. With no statewide office on the ballot, though, Election Day turnout is expected to be low.LeRoy J. Jones Jr., the New Jersey Democratic State Committee chairman, said the party’s focus this cycle had been on expanding its base by adding “younger and less consistent voters.”“It’s all about get-out-the-vote now,” Mr. Jones said on Tuesday.During the legislative elections in 2021, Mr. Murphy, who governed as a steadfast liberal in his first term, became New Jersey’s first Democratic governor to win re-election in 44 years. But he won by just three percentage points. Since then, he has governed as more of a moderate, talking regularly about affordability. In June, he signed a bill geared toward cutting property taxes for most older homeowners by 50 percent beginning in 2026. Democrats have featured the tax cut prominently in their campaigns.A loss or significant erosion of the Democratic majority in either house could be politically damaging to Mr. Murphy in a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans by nearly a million voters. It might also dim the political prospects of his wife, Tammy Murphy, who is expected to enter the race for Senator Robert Menendez’s seat as early as next week. Ms. Murphy, who has championed reproductive rights, joined her husband last week at an event where he promoted a new website where residents can get information about abortion services. Several Democratic lawmakers in tight races attended the event, a sign of how potent they believe reproductive rights may be as an issue this year. Senator Joseph Lagana, a Democrat, said voters appeared concerned that abortion rights could be curtailed in New Jersey, where the procedure remains legal, after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.“It’s a very real issue,” Mr. Lagana said. “It’s a driving factor.” More

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      New Jersey Gov. Murphy Signs Bill That Reshapes Campaign Finance Laws

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      The bill doubles New Jersey’s campaign contribution limits and quashes investigations by a watchdog agency.In January, a watchdog agency created 50 years ago to safeguard the integrity of campaign fund-raising in New Jersey filed four complaints. Three cited irregularities in powerful Democrat-led accounts, and one dinged a committee set up to elect Republicans.All of the complaints had the potential to result in hefty fines. And all of them vanished Monday afternoon when the governor, Philip D. Murphy, signed a controversial bill that fundamentally reshapes New Jersey’s campaign finance laws.The bill, which narrowly cleared the State Legislature last week, began as a way to double donation limits to candidates and to require some so-called dark money fund-raising groups to disclose large donors, whose identities are currently secret.But as the legislation moved through Trenton, where Democrats control the Assembly and Senate, amendments were added that make it harder to rein in — or police — campaign spending.One change gives Mr. Murphy an easier way to replace the executive director of the Election Law Enforcement Commission, known as ELEC. Another lets state and county political committees collect contributions to pay for operating expenses — funds that Philip Hensley, a policy analyst for the League of Women Voters of New Jersey, has decried as unregulated “slush money.”And a third alteration to the bill slashes the time for investigating allegations of impropriety to two years, down from 10. The change is retroactive, and the four complaints filed in January, which stem from fund-raising done in 2017, will be quashed, along with an estimated 80 percent of the agency’s other open investigations, officials have said.On Monday afternoon, the governor’s office sent an email that noted he had signed the bill, but it offered no additional comment.The overhaul of New Jersey’s campaign finance rules comes 13 years after a United States Supreme Court ruling in favor of Citizens United unleashed limitless federal spending by corporations and unions. Since then, some Republican and Democrat-led states have also taken steps to curb the enforcement powers of agencies set up to limit the influence of money in government. “At a time when people everywhere are concerned about the health of democracy in our country,” Mr. Hensley said, “this is just the antithesis of good government.”He called New Jersey’s new law a “frontal assault on some of the rules that have protected good government.”After the bill passed, the election agency’s three commissioners — two Democrats and one Republican — resigned in protest. The fourth seat on the board had been vacant.Stephen M. Holden, a Democrat and former state judge who quit the board last week, called the legislation a “transparent abuse of power.”“It eviscerates our authority and independence,” he said.The two-year time clock for investigations will start at the moment an infraction occurs. But allegations of impropriety rarely surface until at least six months to a year after an election, Mr. Holden said.“If we didn’t get to you within two years, you’re home free,” he said ruefully.Nicholas Scutari, the Democratic president of the State Senate and a sponsor of the bill, has defended the altered statute of limitations, likening the 10-year time frame to a police officer writing a ticket long after a traffic infraction.The agency’s executive director, Jeffrey M. Brindle, had argued that a five-year window would be appropriate, bringing New Jersey in line with many other states.Opponents of the bill said that the two-year statute of limitations was a bald political effort to quash pending investigations and to be free of risk from any as-yet-undiscovered campaign finance violations that took place before April 2021.“What is in those previous eight years yet to be investigated that they don’t want to be investigated?” asked Assemblyman Brian Bergen, a Republican and one of the most vocal opponents of the bill.“Just wiping it off the books? This doesn’t pass the sniff test,” he added.He found rare common cause with many of the state’s left-leaning advocacy organizations, which fought for over a month against the bill.“It rolls back decades of reform,” Mr. Bergen said.The bill became intertwined with the Murphy administration’s efforts to remove Mr. Brindle from a job he has held for 14 years after the discovery of an email he wrote, which the attorney general’s office later concluded was “demeaning” to members of the gay community.Mr. Brindle has since sued the governor and several aides for what his lawyer has said was an effort to extort Mr. Brindle’s resignation by threatening to publicize the email. Mr. Murphy’s spokesman has said that Mr. Brindle was never threatened.The new law gives Mr. Murphy 90 days to appoint an entirely new four-person election board, circumventing the traditional approval needed from the State Senate. The commissioners, who are empowered to hire and fire the agency’s executive director, would also be paid a $30,000 annual stipend.In Mr. Murphy’s most recent comments about the legislation, during a March 22 radio broadcast, the governor declined to discuss the merits of the bill, instead noting that his administration had expanded voting access over the last several years.“Anything that we believe is on the side of transparency that is responsible, that opens up democracy, that shines a light as opposed to the opposite, assume that we’re going to be for it,” he said, noting that at the time, the bill was still being amended. “I think we wait and see what the final, what this looks like as it iterates.” More

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      New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy Has an Eye on Washington

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      The New Jersey governor, re-elected in 2021, is term-limited and has an eye on Washington.It was a whirlwind few days for New Jersey’s term-limited governor, Philip D. Murphy.On a Tuesday in mid-February he publicly chided Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, a Republican, by name, calling his education policies “shameful.” The next day at noon, he proposed requiring all new cars sold after 2035 to be electric, following California’s lead. By early Thursday, Mr. Murphy, a Democrat, had made an unannounced stop in Ukraine en route to a security conference in Germany.Back home in Jersey, the message was clear: The governor’s slow-windup romance with Washington was now a full-boil courtship, though his primary audience might have trouble finding Trenton on a map.“You don’t fade into the woodwork if you have national ambitions,” said Patrick Murray, director of the Polling Institute at Monmouth University, who for decades has watched New Jersey politicians use the state’s quirky off-year election cycle and proximity to New York’s media market as a springboard toward higher office.“You never know when opportunity might strike.”The 2024 presidential contest is well underway. President Biden is expected to run for a second term and the list of Republicans who have announced campaigns or are expected to run already includes Mr. DeSantis (who did not respond to Mr. Murphy’s criticism), former President Donald J. Trump, former Vice President Mike Pence, and Nikki Haley, a former governor of South Carolina.Mr. Murphy has consistently said he would be Mr. Biden’s No. 1 booster if he runs again, and he recently signed on to an advisory board of Democratic loyalists who are expected to be deployed as Biden surrogates when the campaign ramps up.Still, Mr. Murphy, a wealthy former Democratic National Committee finance chairman and ambassador to Germany who amassed a fortune at the investment bank Goldman Sachs, has never completely closed the door to running for the White House should the president’s plans change.And, either way, he appears as intent as ever at cultivating a national image, aware, perhaps, that there are often consolation prizes.On Saturday, Mr. Murphy will try to spit-polish his résumé with humor when he takes the mic at the annual Gridiron Club dinner, a famously irreverent white-tie-and-tails roast that draws Washington’s top journalists and political insiders. (The other speaker that night will be Mr. Pence.)Close associates say Mr. Murphy, who declined to comment for this article, is genuinely unsure about the job he might want next, but they speculate that he could be interested in again being an ambassador or perhaps even secretary of state.A graduate of Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania who grew up outside of Boston, he now counts the musician Jon Bon Jovi among his closest friends. But he comes from humble means, the youngest of four children in a working-class Irish-Catholic family. Only his mother graduated from high school; his father worked for a time managing a liquor store near their home.Politics Across the United StatesFrom the halls of government to the campaign trail, here’s a look at the political landscape in America.Phil Murphy: A trip to Ukraine. A jab at Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida. What is New Jersey’s term-limited governor up to? Recent moves suggest he has an eye on Washington.No Rest for Congressional Mapmakers: What used to be a once-a-decade redistricting fight between parties is now in perpetual motion, and up to 29 seats in 14 states are already at risk of being redrawn.In Michigan: Democrats in the state are pressing ahead with a torrent of liberal measures, the boldest assertion yet of their new political power since taking full control of state government.John Fetterman: A dozen miles from the Capitol, the first-term Democrat from Pennsylvania is keeping up with his Senate work while being treated for severe clinical depression.Always social, Mr. Murphy has become a retail-politics pro. He gamely drapes his arm around shoulders when asked to pose for selfies, his grin wide and pointer finger aimed, showman-style, toward the new best friend at his side.But it is the hundreds of off-camera calls he made to families that lost relatives to Covid-19 that his chief of staff, George Helmy, cites when calling him “one of the most authentic human beings I’ve ever seen.”Mr. Murphy greets customers on the first day of legalized recreational marijuana sales at a dispensary in Elizabeth, N.J., last year.Bryan Anselm for The New York TimesMr. Murphy came to Trenton with few allies, yet has managed a notable share of wins.During his first term, New Jersey lawmakers increased taxes on income over $1 million, approved a $15 minimum wage, legalized marijuana, strengthened gun-control laws, locked in paid sick leave for workers and reduced long-ignored pension debt by billions of dollars, resulting in several upgrades to the state’s credit ratings.But after being re-elected in 2021 by a narrower margin than expected, Mr. Murphy has made an overt effort to appeal more to moderate voters, leaving some of his left-leaning base frustrated by what they see as a lack of urgency to finish up strong.Michael Feldman, a communications consultant and friend of Mr. Murphy, said none of the governor’s policy victories had been “a layup.”“His ambition now is to try to help advance the agenda that he’s pursued in New Jersey — to help advance some of these issues at a national level,” said Mr. Feldman, who was a senior adviser to former Vice President Al Gore.“I don’t know what the job is or will be, but there’s plenty of places that a person with his experience could be helpful in getting some of these things done.”New Jersey governors cannot serve more than two consecutive terms. And for the past year observers wondering about Mr. Murphy’s next move have taken note of his suddenly youthful hairdo, hip new glasses and shifting rhetoric.The governor who once suggested that New Jersey was not the best fit for residents or businesses concerned mainly about low taxes now describes himself as a “coldblooded capitalist.” His budget address concluded with an ode to the value of hard work. And his State of the State stressed the importance of bipartisanship, buried in a humblebrag about his friendship with the Republican governor of Utah, the vice chairman of the National Governors Association, which Mr. Murphy now leads.Mr. Murphy, 65, is also chairman of the Democratic Governors Association — the first governor to hold both leadership posts at the same time. He has leveraged the roles to his advantage.During a recent trip to Los Angeles for the National Governors Association, he and his wife, Tammy, dined with leaders of film studios to pitch New Jersey’s assets as a moviemaking hub, while also raising funds for the four political accounts they now juggle. Alliances he has formed have led to speaking gigs in Nevada and Florida. And both of the governors’ associations are holding major conferences this year in New Jersey.There are younger Democratic governors with bigger names or bigger bank accounts, including Gavin Newsom of California, Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan and J.B. Pritzker of Illinois.But during Mr. Biden’s presidency, New Jersey has been a regular stop for members of the administration, with at least two visits apiece by the president, the first lady, Vice President Kamala Harris and Pete Buttigieg, the transportation secretary.If Mr. Biden were to win re-election and tap Mr. Murphy for a job he found enticing enough to take, it could mean leaving Trenton before his term ends in 2026, making the race for governor — already shaping up to be a grab-the-popcorn thriller — even livelier.Gov. Phil Murphy of New Jersey speaks alongside Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg during a news conference at a rail yard on the west side of Manhattan.John Minchillo/Associated PressStill, even among liberals inclined to support him, Mr. Murphy’s second-term reviews have grown increasingly mixed.Last year he reinstituted a bear hunt he had vowed to outlaw, enraging animal rights activists. He opened the door to private development in Liberty State Park, the state’s largest and busiest public oasis, at the urging of groups funded by the billionaire owner of an adjacent golf club. And there are so many judicial vacancies that some counties have had to halt divorce trials.A coalition of environmental groups is suing the state to force Mr. Murphy to follow through on ambitious climate-change rules he ordered as part of a 2019 law. “A poster child for actions not meeting the rhetoric,” David Pringle, a leader of the coalition, said.And residents of communities as disparate as Jersey City, Newark and Gibbstown, in the rural southwest portion of the state, are furious over Mr. Murphy’s support for expanding the turnpike near New York City and failing to stop six new fossil-fuel projects, which are expected to worsen air quality in minority communities already overburdened by pollution.“The governor has a lot of words for environmental justice but does not actually demonstrate leadership on behalf of our community,” said Maria Lopez-Nuñez, who lives in Newark and is fighting to block the construction of a backup power plant in the city’s Ironbound neighborhood.Ms. Lopez-Nuñez is also a member of Mr. Biden’s White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council.“I would love to cheer on the governor,” she said. “But I need to see the work.”A spokesman for Mr. Murphy, Mahen Gunaratna, said some opposition was to be expected, particularly after a first term in which Mr. Murphy delivered on so many of the campaign promises his progressive base held dear. His second-term priorities are hewing closer to the center.At least part of his change in tone is tied to November’s legislative races. Democratic leaders who control the State Legislature remain jittery over the loss of seven seats in 2021, and Republicans believe that they are in striking range of regaining majority control — an outcome that would undermine Mr. Murphy’s legacy.A January poll by Monmouth University suggested that Mr. Murphy’s popularity was holding steady at 52 percent. But fewer than a third of those surveyed said he would make a good president.Only one governor from New Jersey has ever been elected president: Woodrow Wilson, whose memory is now so tainted by his racist policies that Princeton removed his name from its school of public and international affairs.Other New Jersey luminaries have also had designs on the White House in recent years: Senator Bill Bradley was eclipsed in the 2000 Democratic primary by Mr. Gore; Gov. Chris Christie ended his campaign in 2016 before endorsing Mr. Trump; and Senator Cory Booker bowed out of the last presidential contest after a yearlong campaign.Mr. Booker, 53, a Democrat and former mayor of Newark, appears to be keeping his options as open as Mr. Murphy. “I’m not running in ’24 if Joe Biden is running,” Mr. Booker said in a recent television interview.“My goal in life is to put more ‘indivisible’ back into this ‘one nation under God,’” he said, adding, “so we’ll see about the future.”Jennifer Palmieri, a Democratic strategist who was director of communications for President Barack Obama, has known Mr. Murphy since 2005 and considers him a friend. She said she did not know what he was hoping to do next. But, she added, “it does not seem like he’s anywhere near done.” More