Noticias

Revitalizing a run-down park along the Delaware River in Phillipsburg. Building a new community center in Plainfield. Preserving Lucy the Elephant, the iconic landmark of the Margate boardwalk.

All of these New Jersey projects, as well as hundreds more, were originally set to be funded during last year’s government funding process, but after Republicans in Congress opted to pass a year-long stopgap bill instead of a proper appropriations package, they got left out. Now, with another government funding deadline on the horizon, New Jersey’s lawmakers are trying to make sure the same thing doesn’t happen this year.

According to a New Jersey Globe analysis of FY2026 appropriations legislation, New Jersey’s 12 representatives and two senators have secured $268 million in community project funding, better known as earmarks, that will be delivered directly to local infrastructure projects, nonprofit groups, universities, and police and fire departments. That’s probably an undercount, since some funds requested by Senators Cory Booker and Andy Kim are part of Senate appropriations bills that haven’t been released yet.

See here for a full list of FY2026 New Jersey earmarks, or scroll to the bottom of this article for a PDF version.

The government funding process this year, however, has become deeply fraught and politicized, leaving those funds in limbo. Earmarks are traditionally only approved as part of bipartisan appropriations packages, and Republicans and Democrats are miles away from coming to any kind of deal right now; even Republicans’ two-month continuing resolution (CR), which passed the House last week, has run into fierce opposition from Democrats, raising the prospect of a government shutdown.

(A CR is a form of stopgap bill that essentially keeps the government funded at current levels for a set period of time, typically with the purpose of giving Congress more time to negotiate full-year appropriations bills; most CRs, including the one that the House passed last week, don’t include earmarks.)

Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-Dennis) – whose district has $19,271,000 in funding at stake, more than any other representative from New Jersey – said that he still strongly supports the earmark process, and that he believes Speaker Mike Johnson does as well.

“I’m going to really fight hard for [earmarks],” Van Drew said. “It makes a huge difference, and I think it’s really important in our districts… As a conservative, I believe it’s much better for the member of Congress who should be representing their people to make the decisions about where money goes rather than a bureaucrat.”

But Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-Ewing), who sits on the House committee that wrote the funding bills in the first place, said she’s worried that earmarks will once again get left out as Republicans barrel ahead with their funding plans.

“I certainly know that we cannot depend on the New Jersey Republicans to stand up for what’s right,” Watson Coleman said. “They can talk a big game, but they don’t work that game.”

Earmarks have long been one of the primary ways members of Congress are able to directly deliver money for local programs and projects – and, more cynically, boost their own political profiles with government money. Widespread abuse of the earmark system led Republicans to discontinue them after retaking the House in 2010; Democrats brought them back in 2021, but with new guardrails to prevent members from pouring money into their own projects or into “bridges to nowhere.”

During last year’s government funding process, however, the earmark process got derailed when Republicans funded the government for an entire year using CRs, none of which included earmarks. Some Republicans, among them Van Drew and Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-Westfield), held out hope for getting the earmarks approved in a standalone bill or as part of a different funding package, but that never came to pass.

“There was so much else going on around that,” Van Drew said, explaining why the push for last year’s earmarks didn’t make headway. “And that may happen again. But this time I think we have to focus on it more.”

Instead, members had to roll over many of the projects they intended to fund in FY2025 into the new FY2026 funding process. Of the $268 million in earmark funding that’s been promised to New Jersey for FY2026, $158 million – nearly three-fifths – is dedicated to projects that were originally slated to be funded last year.

Presumably, that means other projects that might have been funded this year had to be pushed off to make way for last year’s projects. Watson Coleman also said that members were limited in what kinds of funding they could request, herding them towards certain projects and away from others.

“We were only able to supply a fraction of the projects,” she said. “There are a lot more infrastructure projects than there are social program projects, and I tend to want more social service projects to be included in my list, but we were constrained by where they told us we could look for money.”

Of course, the debate over government funding has implications for New Jersey that go far beyond a few hundred million dollars in earmarks, money that represents a drop in the bucket compared to the trillions of dollars the government spends every year. When Congress more broadly chooses to fund federal projects and agencies – or chooses not to fund them – New Jerseyans feel the impact.

For example, Democrats have sounded the alarm that House Republicans’ Energy Department appropriations bill takes a hatchet to federal beach replenishment funds, which aren’t specifically localized to New Jersey but which inevitably have an outsized impact on the state’s long coastline.

“Towns in my district and in red and blue districts throughout our country alike depend on replenishment to prevent damage from coastal storms,” Rep. Frank Pallone (D-Long Branch) said on the House floor in protest of the bill. “It’s that simple. And we can’t let a bunch of climate denying Republicans in Congress gamble with New Jersey or with other coastlines.”

Therein lies a key problem for Democrats. The earmarks process is a bipartisan one, without overwhelming favor towards one party or the other; while Van Drew’s district is set to get more earmark funding than any other in New Jersey, second and third place belong to Rep. Rob Menendez (D-Jersey City) and Watson Coleman, both Democrats.

But the appropriations process itself, especially in the House, has become far more partisan, and Democrats are unlikely to support conservative Republican-drafted bills even if they want to secure the earmark funding that’s attached to them. And while House Republicans can pass funding bills on party-line votes, the same isn’t true in the Senate, where some Democratic votes are needed to break a filibuster.

Ultimately, congressional Republicans may turn to the same solution they resorted to during the FY2025 process: passing another year-long CR. That would put earmarks on the chopping block once again, but Van Drew said he’d still try to get some funding approved.

“I see a real possibility of a one-year CR,” the congressman said. “If that happens, then we want to get some of those things in there.”

The post At least $268 million in dedicated N.J. funds at stake in government funding debate appeared first on New Jersey Globe.

Superior Court Judge Mark P. Ciarrocca on Tuesday set the schedule for a challenge to a special Democratic convention that picked the nominee for a Roselle Council seat. 

Incumbent Denise Wilkerson, who lost the nomination to Cynthia Johnson, said the emergency meeting where Democrats picked Johnson included voters who were not eligible members. The allegations come in a lawsuit that Wilkerson has filed against the Roselle Democratic Committee, Johnson, and Assemblyman and Roselle Democratic Chair Reginald Atkins.

The court-ordered Democratic committee vote earlier this month wasn’t particularly close — Johnson won 20-7. Still, Wilkerson asked a judge to void the results of that vote because two voting members were allegedly ineligible. The lawsuit claims one person wrongfully substituted another member of the Roselle Democratic Committee, while another was invited to vote despite no longer being a Democrat.

Briefs in the case are due Wednesday at 4 p.m., and a hearing will be held Thursday at 2 p.m. Ciarrocca said he plans to issue a ruling on Friday.

In the primary, Wilkerson was initially ruled to have defeated Johnson by three votes. Superior Court Judge John Deitch denied Johnson’s request for a recount earlier this summer, but an appellate court overruled him. The recount brought Wilkerson’s margin down to two votes, but kept her in the lead.

Johnson continued the legal challenges. Earlier this month, her attorneys presented three voters whom Deitch ruled were illegally disenfranchised. With those findings, Deitch nullified the election and ordered a redo of the primary. Late last week, Deitch determined he lacked the authority to order a new election so late in the process and changed his mind. Instead, he told Roselle Democrats they had until last week to select a candidate, which ended up being Johnson.

Wilkerson accused Atkins of repeatedly violating bylaws and regulations, pointing to a 2023 do-over vote in which he won re-election to the Roselle Democratic chairmanship.

Atkins said he’s confident in the process.

“Twice the Roselle Democratic Committee voted fairly and transparently, and twice Cynthia Johnson was the clear choice by a double-digit margin,” he said.

The post Judge sets schedule in challenge to Roselle nomination appeared first on New Jersey Globe.

OPINION

While we in the Sussex Republican committee raise the voter turnout, message our platform, canvass and call bank, and support our elected officials, we are annoyed by borderline malefactors who have let down all that ever trusted them in life, personally and politically. Claiming free speech, they use the freedom to harm others out of spite.

When Peter Zenger was tried for Libel in 1733, a jury acquitted him because his words spoke “truth” and that was considered the staple of a “free press.” This case became a landmark case for freedom of the press not just in America, but the entire western world. What Zenger published were disagreements with the personnel decisions made by the colonial governor of New York, and accusing him, through a pseudonym (fake name), of manipulating appointed positions to maintain political control. Zenger was arrested, jailed for 8 months, and then acquitted by a New York Jury.

Currently, we are experiencing a dynamic where very cowardly and dishonest people use fake names to spread slander, veiled under the mask of blogging, and using gossip as if it was fact, under a political agenda, against the interests of the Republican party, and the people, as they spread misinformation and get away with it.

What Zenger did not do is slander personal accusations, attack the family of the Royal Governor, and attempt to mislead or mischaracterize information to achieve his own personal political agenda. Zenger wrote with integrity, as an actual journalist, with no political stake.

Here in New Jersey, there is a little gang called “Rubashov” who operates the “Sussex watchdog” and the “Jersey conservative” (Nothing “conservative” about it) and our very own disgraced county commissioner, Bill Hayden, all who plague the public with a tabloid like collection of social media, a website and a distribution list manned by disreputable wannabe politicians who have done the following:

-one claimed to be a Navy Seal when never having served in the military

-one having been indicted for tax fraud pretending to be military to receive a military exemption

-one posed as a Republican when in fact was a democrat, to infiltrate the Republican party and run a disastrous and comically incompetent campaign for county commissioner

-one volunteered to be a party leader, then used the GOP to get law clients for himself, and approached the line between extortion, intimidation and solicitation

-one pretended to be a political “consultant” but in turns out, was never a member of any professional organizations or had qualifications but instead

-the “consultant” conned two generations of Sussex County leadership using threats of slander under a fake name and is on revenge tour for being fired by the previous Senator

-all parties colluded to invent a fake scandal about the Sussex food pantry and personally threatened myself and others with “FBI” arrest if they didn’t go along with it. It was all made up

-one uses his own wife as spy at GOP events, under the guise of being a photographer (beware any Strauss media at your events)

-one told me personally that my military service “didn’t mean shit” because I “chose to be sucker”

-the utter failure and disgrace of a county commissioner, Hayden, is on the infamous tape-recording telling democrats that his is aligned with them and is against the GOP, and was undermining them on purpose, then made up actual crimes he told the democrat handler that GOP leaders and elected officials did

-one pretends to condemn past marital issues, when his own wife is a serial adulteress

-The fake “consultant” (Rubashov) invents scandals and lies, and spends all his time attacking his previous Republican clients who fired him for good cause

-one is a financial disaster who was borderline homeless, who attacked the party from within, slandering donors and then fell on her face with a fake coup that humiliated her

-the other is a democrat blogger, who was visited by the secret service, who is vulgar and dishonest and attacks our office holders’ personal lives and spews the worst kind of left-wing vitriol, and who seems to be in league with these other “Republicans.”

What do they have in common? Three things, an unholy trinity of cowardice (underhanded betrayals of confidence and fake names), dishonesty and selfish service. The other thing they have in common: No credible person will have anything to do with them. Barbara Holstein asked for many self-serving things when she was Vice Chairwoman, and she acted out against the interests of the party. When she couldn’t get her way, she tried to take the party over and failed, she was seen through.

This is the last public message to respond to their shenanigans. I hope that good people are not deterred by this, and do not take this as a reason to avoid politics. The Republican Party has a chance to take back New Jersey, and these people are doing all they can to undermine it, first from within, and I’m proud to say that I’ve made them adversaries from the outside. Their attempt to harm my family is demonstrative of our success, and it will continue.

Joe Labarbera was a U.S. Marine officer in Kosovo and a U.,S. Army officer in Afghanistan.  He is the Sussex County GOP Chairman. 

The post The “Rubashov” dynamic: How free speech ends: When bad actors weaponize lies to slander, and the law tolerates it appeared first on New Jersey Globe.

OPINION

While watching the first gubernatorial debate Sunday night, I became more convinced that Jack Ciattarelli’s positions on education, housing and health are regressive, and so backward-looking they would further divide the state along racial and economic lines.

Ciattarelli classifies cities and suburbs as distinct entities rather than collaborative for equitable education, intelligent growth, and fair distribution of healthcare resources.

Here is a snapshot of his views. There is no value in integrating our schools. Affordable housing is an urban problem. Rising healthcare costs should be shouldered by state funding for public employees, rather than rein in the exorbitant costs charged by doctors and hospitals that prevent all working families, the poor, and elderly from seeking care.

Let me first say Ciattarelli’s use of the Newark schools as an example of a substandard system because of a lack of choice is wrong on both counts.

Our best performing high schools, Science Park, Arts High and University High, have the same graduation rates as Millburn, Summit and Mountain Lakes, and other top-ranked schools.

When Ciatterelli spoke of the hallmarks of failing school systems, he overlooked the following facts about Newark.

The New Jersey Department of Education estimates Newark’s graduation rate for all its high schools is 89.6 percent for the school year 2024-2025, up three percentage points from the year before. These numbers reflect a precipitous drop in our chronic truancy, which is under 10 percent. These numbers are the best in decades, including the years the schools were under state supervision.

While lauding his plan to give students “choice,” he failed to mention one-third of Newark students are in charter schools because it didn’t fit his narrative of the city’s school system.

I found Ciattarelli’s comment that if Black schools outperformed white schools “we wouldn’t be having this conversation” dismissive of the whole integration issue.

Perhaps most troubling was his comment that “if we integrated the Newark school system tomorrow and it’s not going to improve student performance. we need to change the curriculum.”

It sounded like something from the Civil Rights Era when Bull Connor stood in the way of desegregation in Alabama, and little Ruby Bridges had to walk through a jeering crowd in New Orleans to go to a white school.

It also shows true ignorance of the social determinants, like poverty and substandard nutrition that impact learning, and also ignores the collective achievements of our students.

Jordan Thomas, a University High graduate, went on to Princeton, Yale, Harvard, and Oxford and was the first Rhodes Scholar from Newark.

Jeremias Castillo was the National Honor Society’s Student of the Year while at Technology High and is now at Harvard.

Our students have been accepted at every Ivy League school and hundreds have gone to the nation’s best HBCUs, while pulling down $632 million in academic scholarships.

Technology High was named a Blue Ribbon School in 2023, Newark’s eighth since 1999.

Ciattarelli’s comment also ignores research that all students at integrated schools have better SAT scores and lower dropout rates, and benefit socially, too, as they get to know people from diverse backgrounds.

His reach back to the 1960s and decades-old stereotypes to portray Black students as hopeless, was meant to stoke fear in mostly white districts that integration would ruin their schools.

He used that dog whistle again in the affordable housing discussion, claiming infrastructure can’t support 50-unit developments in suburban cities.

First, if zoned and planned correctly, development improves infrastructure. Development has helped Newark continually upgrade our water delivery and storm water and sewage disposal systems. It’s simple math. The more customers we have, the more money we can spend to improve our systems. Also, by making developers plant trees, create rain gardens and other green spaces, we can create more permeable landscapes and lessen the impact of torrential rainstorms.

Second, every suburb on a train or bus route has an opportunity and I would say, an obligation, to create affordable housing. While it’s true that a trackside apartment tower would change the character of small- and medium-sized suburbs, it is also true that there are less imposing ways to build affordable units and spread them out within walking distance of the transit lines.

I can’t think of a suburb on a train or bus line that can’t easily absorb their fair share of affordable housing. There are creative ways to do this. Change restrictive zoning laws on multi-family housing. Allow single family homeowners to add accessory dwelling units to their property for elderly long-time residents or town workers who can’t afford to live in the place they work. Create more low-income set asides in all projects. We’ve done this in Newark, and our residents get first dibs. If suburbs took this approach, affordable housing units wouldn’t change the character of their towns, they would help preserve it.

When Jack Ciatterelli talks about the state spending more to fund healthcare costs for state employees, it shows he has no understanding of the system or the will to fight healthcare providers to lower their costs. Since Chris Christie’s Chapter 78, which required public workers to contribute a larger percentage of their health insurance premiums annually, costs have skyrocketed.

This year, the City of Newark fought to curb those costs, and introduced a healthcare plan for our employees with reference pricing and offered it as an opt-in. This means the city will pay a hospital or insurance company 150 percent of what Medicare will pay for a visit, procedure or hospital stay. We saved tens of millions of dollars, and our employees got more money in their paychecks, and the City had to contribute less for their insurance costs.

Without a fight to reduce medical costs, working people who aren’t state employees will continue to see costs rise unabated, and find it harder to pay for preventive and wellness care.

For too long, New Jersey’s home rule has divided the state by racial and socioeconomic lines. These regressive policies have led to stunted housing growth, economic stagnation and have failed to give all our residents a fair stake in the state’s future. I fear Ciatterelli will lead us backward at a time when we should be moving forward.

The post Opinion: Baraka on Ciattarelli’s debate performance appeared first on New Jersey Globe.