BettyLou DeCroce formally declared that she is seeking the Republican nomination for the State Assembly in the redrawn 26th Legislative District, two years after losing in a bitter GOP primary battle. Due to redistricting, DeCroce will not face the lawmaker who defeated her two years ago—Assemblyman Jay Webber is a holdover and is joined by Assemblyman Brian Bergen, moving over from the 25th. The Parsippany resident cited her three priorities if elected would be parental rights in their children’s education, property taxes, and tackling the rising crime rate in the Garden State. “Our children should graduate school with marketable skills in a competitive global environment, not with mastery of the woke agenda,” says DeCroce. North-JerseyNews.com
Jersey City Councilwoman Amy DeGise was sentenced to a one-year driver’s license suspension and $5,000 fine after she pleaded guilty Jan. 24 to a hit-and-run incident. “Seven months ago I made a mistake that I will regret for the rest of my life,” DeGise said in a written statement after the plea agreement. “I want to offer my heartfelt apology to Andrew Black and I am thankful that he was not hurt. I also want to apologize to the people of Jersey City for not only my actions, but for the negative attention they brought to our wonderful community…I will continue to do whatever I can to help my community as an elected member of the City Council, and I will be serving the remainder of my term.” The Jersey Journal
Albio Sires, the former Congressman running for mayor of West New York, announced his full slate of Commission candidates. Incumbent Victor M. Barrera will seek re-election on Sires’ slate, along with two school board members, Adam Parkinson and Marielka Diaz, and Marcos Arroyo, the Republican candidate for Congress in New Jersey’s 8th district in 2022. “I am honored to be joined in this campaign by a group of dynamic leaders who represent the diversity of our community and who will each bring their own unique experience and perspective to the Board of Commissioners,” said Sires. InsiderNJ.com
A Monmouth poll found a majority of New Jerseyans are still concerned about the effect the coronavirus could have on them or a family member but are resistant to taking steps to combat the virus. The number of state residents who report testing positive for COVID has risen to 56% in the current poll from 38% nearly a year ago, an increase reported in every demographic group. A total of 57% of respondents stated they were concerned about someone in their family becoming seriously ill from the coronavirus outbreak. But the rise in cases and concerns has not resulted in a willingness to return to the more controversial steps enacted to previously help slow the spread of the virus—just 32% of Garden State residents support reinstituting general face masks and social distancing guidelines in the state, while 63% are opposed. North-JerseyNews.com
Aides to former Vice President Mike Pence found a “small number of documents” with classified markings at his home in Indiana during a search last week, according to an adviser to Pence. The documents were “inadvertently boxed and transported” to Pence’s home at the end of President Donald J. Trump’s administration, Greg Jacob, Pence’s representative for dealing with records related to the presidency, wrote in a letter to the National Archives. Jacob wrote that despite having a conversation with archives officials on Jan. 19 about procedures for obtaining records from former presidents and vice presidents, the Justice Department that evening “bypassed the standard procedures and requested direct possession” of the documents. The New York Times
Speaker Kevin McCarthy unilaterally exiled Reps. Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell from the House Intelligence Committee, making good on a longstanding threat to expel the California Democrats for their roles in the two impeachments of Donald Trump. McCarty argued that both men had displayed behavior unbecoming of the committee tasked with overseeing the nation’s intelligence services, describing “the misuse” of the intelligence panel during the last four years that “severely undermined its primary national security and oversight missions — ultimately leaving our nation less safe.” The New York Times
President Joe Biden met with Democratic congressional leaders to project a united front on the economy and the coming fight over lifting the debt ceiling. At the start of the Jan. 24 meeting, President Biden warned that newly empowered House Republican lawmakers could cut Social Security and Medicare, and he criticized a proposal pushed by some in the GOP to impose a national sales tax. “I have no intention of letting the Republicans wreck our economy,” he said. The Wall Street Journal
Germany will send 14 of its modern Leopard main battle tanks to Ukraine as part of a coordinated push with the U.S. and other allies to escalate their support ahead of an expected Russian offensive. In addition to pledging German tanks, other countries would provide German-made tanks out of their own stocks as part of a broad coalition to boost Kyiv’s armed forces. The goal would be to quickly put together two tank battalions’ worth of Leopard 2 tanks, with the initial battalion arriving in Ukraine within three months, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said. Two battalions typically comprise close to 100 tanks. The Wall Street Journal
Rep. Josh Gottheimer, as part of his Lower Tax Tuesday program, announced federal grants totaling $1.2 million for county and municipal police projects in the 5th Congressional District Jan. 24. The Bergen County Sheriff’s Office will receive $954,000 for 100 new security cameras and trailer-mounted message boards while Bogota will be allocated $255,000 to underwrite a state-of-the-art communication system to replace the department’s two-way radio system damaged by lightning 18 months ago. The Record
PSE&G cut rates on gas for residential customers as of Feb. 1. The companies said a cut of $15 a month for customers who use 100 therms per month, or a reduction of $30 per month for those who use 200 therms per month to the more than 1.7 million residential customers in the state. NJ.com
Sen. Cory Booker is rekindling the debate on reparations for slavery in Washington. Booker is reintroducing legislation to create a study commission that would study the impact of slavery and racism, and then make recommendations on reparations. “Many of our bedrock domestic policies that have ushered millions of Americans into the middle class have systematically excluded Black individuals,” Booker said, adding the legislation would “bring our country one step closer to our founding principles of liberty and justice for all.” NJ1015.com
Gov. Phil Murphy recently signed into law additional legislation to secure and expand access to reproductive healthcare. Under the bill, patients will be able to acquire self-administered hormonal contraceptives to patients without an individual prescription. Pharmacists will be allowed to identify which contraceptives they are allowed to prescribe, as well. Meanwhile, Reps. Mikie Sherrill and Donald Payne, Jr. both voted against House bills they see as recent Republican moves to infringe upon reproductive freedom. North-JerseyNews.com
The city of Trenton has dropped the state health benefits plan for public workers and to go with a private insurer in what could be the first of many across the state as local governments stare down the barrel of double-digit premium hikes. Trenton’s city council decided late last week to switch to Aetna to insure its roughly 2,000 public workers in a move its mayor says will save taxpayers $4.3 million a year. NJ.com
New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin announced an investigation into failures of Monmouth County’s voting machine vendor, Elections Systems & Software (ES&S), that led to the double counting of votes in the November 2022 general election. Platkin designated an outside law firm—Patterson, Belknap, Webb, and Tyler LLP—to conduct the investigation to obviate any appearance of a conflict since the attorney general’s office is the legal counsel to the Monmouth County Board of Elections. The probe will be led by former New Jersey Attorney General Peter Harvey, a former federal prosecutor who has led internal investigations for the National Football League and ran the New Jersey State Police compliance of a U.S. Department of Justice consent decree. New Jersey Globe
New Jersey’s warehouse industry faces a possible future restraint on its recent explosive growth because of legislative and municipal action to curb its expansion. A quarterly report on industrial real estate in north and central New Jersey found more evidence of strong demand for warehouse space in the final three months of 2022 but signaled for the second consecutive quarter that the runaway growth seen may slow in response to state laws and local ordinances designed to curb so-called warehouse sprawl. At least two bills, introduced in the Legislature in late 2022, are a response to public concern that the warehouse industry is consuming scarce open space, choking local roads with trucks and industrializing remaining rural corners of the state. NJ Spotlight News
And finally…Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band got ‘loud’ in Trenton as they hold final rehearsals for their tour set to kickoff next week. The Record
