Democratic unity and “bold” action against the Trump administration were themes that dominated the introduction of candidates at an April 23 debate at The Woodland in Maplewood between four of 6 Democrats running in the New Jersey Governor primary on June 10.
“It is imperative that we as community members get involved and get educated in our local and state elections,” said Allison Posner, co-president of SOMA Action — a sponsor of the event along with Maplewood Democratic Committee, the South Orange Democratic Committee, the West Orange Democratic Committee, and the Montclair Democrats.
“It is not hyperbole to say that this moment is different,” continued Posner. “Democracy itself is on the line in our country. We are facing down the threat of fascism every day due to the reckless and often unconstitutional actions of the Trump administration. It is critically important that New Jersey stay blue and elect a Democrat to succeed Governor Phil Murphy this November.”
U.S. Rep. Mike Sherrill, Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop, Newark Mayor Ras J. Baraka, and former Montclair Mayor Sean M. Spiller and moderator Nancy Solomon take the stage.
Posner’s remarks were echoed by Ritu Pancholy, vice chair of the South Orange Democratic Committee and trustee of SOMA Action, and Maplewood Township Committee member Dean Dafis.
“All eyes will be on New Jersey in November,” said Pancholy. “The last gubernatorial election was decided by a very narrow margin. And, while we pride ourselves in Essex County on going out to vote, in fact, only 32% of eligible voters cast a vote on a ballot in 2021. We can and must do better.”
The candidates remained mostly collegial — sometimes nodding in agreement with each others’ answers — but differences emerged as they fielded questions about property taxes, housing, segregation, ballot reform, and more, before a large and rapt audience.
Allison Posner, Ritu Pancholy watch the debate as Maplewood police provide security.
U.S. Rep. Mike Sherrill, Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop, Newark Mayor Ras J. Baraka, and former Montclair Mayor Sean M. Spiller answered questions posed by WNYC Senior Reporter and NJ Public Radio Managing Editor — and Maplewood resident — Nancy Solomon, as well as audience members.
Following is a transcription of the candidates’ introductions and the Q&A between Solomon and the candidates. A transcription of a Q&A with the audience and closing remarks will follow in a separate post.
To begin, Nancy Solomon instructed candidates that they would have 45 seconds to respond to questions. But first she gave them each 90 seconds to introduce themselves.
Listen to the first 1 hour and 10 minutes of the event here:
Sean M. Spiller:
First thing, I appreciate everybody being here tonight. It’s a part of how democracy works and it’s an important piece. So thank you so much. A little bit about me. I’m an immigrant who came to this country as a young boy from Jamaica. My parents lived all over the world and said, “We want to go someplace where there’s opportunity for you and your brother.” And, this is where they came. And they came to New Jersey, which I’ve always been very, very proud of. But right from the start, I understood how hard it was for my parents to get by. My dad would be away from months at a time, sending dollars home. And I just knew there was a sacrifice. And for me, everything I’ve ever experienced, whether it’s going on to become a teacher myself, a high school science teacher, I saw it in the conversations of the parents of the students that I would teach, making tough choices, trying to support their students, but not having the dollars, having the challenges that we’ve seen in the state.
I’ve seen it as a labor leader, right? When we faced attacks before from the first bully in this state, Chris Christie, right? Who came after us and divided, but who went after folks in a mean way — sound familiar? — but who did it in a way that attacked folks who were caring for other people’s children. I’ve been in the communities fighting for what our communities need. I know what that’s like, but it’s a tough place to afford. I’ve been in, as a mayor, a council person for 12 years, the township of Montclair, where especially through Covid, I was proud to pass the first ever rent control because we saw just costs going up and up and up, and families having a tough time being able to afford it. I’ve seen it now with the storms that happen every other year. The pumping out of the basements, the connection to the rising utility bills that need to address environmental justice and climate change and the green economy. All of these things are connected. They’re all topics I know we’re gonna talk about today. But I just say this, every single one of these things is personal to me. When I talk about Donald Trump and standing up, it’s personal to me. When I talk about making New Jersey more affordable, it’s personal to me. Each one of these issues who’s talking about them matters. And my lived experience is why I’m running to be the next governor of New Jersey.
Ras Baraka:
My name is Mayor Ras Baraka, the mayor of the state’s largest city. I’ve been the mayor there for 11 years, a council person. I’ve been an educator in Newark Public Schools for 23 years. I have a relationship with Maplewood and South Orange because my grandmother, who we buried last month, was 99 years old. She had a home in South Orange. Her name was Ruth Richardson. She came here from the Carolinas fleeing Jim Crow and was a garment worker, a part of [International Ladies’] Garment Workers’ Union. She lived in South Orange because her husband, my grandfather, was a Teamster. His truck tipped over one day and he became paralyzed. And because he was paralyzed, he got a whole bunch of money and that money landed him the opportunity to buy a house in South Orange. You know, kind of like A Raisin in the Sun.
So we were able to go there all of the time and eat Thanksgiving dinner. A whole lot of us got to see the dichotomy of Essex County, the dichotomy of the state, the inequity, and the beauty of the state. At the same time, many of us believe and understand that America is a work in progress, that it’s always been a work in progress. That it’s been a work in progress from slavery, to freedom, to women’s rights, to housing rights, all the things we fight for. And sometimes we paused and sometimes we didn’t do much. But we’ve always been moving forward. Now things are changing. We’re beginning to move backward, and people are getting a little excited and scared and fearful. And I’m gonna tell you I’m scared as well. But I pray every night that my fear doesn’t turn me into a coward. That I’m able to stand on the things that I believe that my democratic values will lead me.
And I’m not here saying things simply to encourage you to vote for me. Because there is an election. I honestly believe that we need to do something bold, something different, something imaginative, something that you haven’t done. Yeah, if you’re doing what’s comfortable right now, then what you’re doing is wrong. You should be doing something that makes you feel uncomfortable, that makes you feel unsteady, that makes you feel the tension of the moment. You should be scared, but you should act anyway and do something bold. And I’m gonna tell you the boldest thing you can do is June 10th, make sure Ras Baraka is the governor, the democratic nominee.”
Steven Fulop:
Let me start by saying thank you to SOMA, I’ll take a couple seconds just to acknowledge the fact that you’ve been at the forefront of the progressive agenda for New Jersey. You were bold enough to organize in the early administration of the first Donald Trump. And you were bold enough to stand alone with Andy Kim when nobody would do it. And you’ve been bold enough every step of the way to set the stage for what’s next in New Jersey.
I come from a family of immigrants. My family is Holocaust survivors, they immigrated here after most of my family died in the gas chambers. They settled in Edison, New Jersey, and my father had a deli in Newark. I proudly say that I know more about the deli business than any gubernatorial candidate in the history of America. And maybe that’s my fallback position. But all joking aside, I graduated college. I got a job at a prestigious place, maybe the most prestigious investment bank. And after being there two years at 9/11 — everybody here had a 9/11 moment — I decided to leave and enlist in the Marine Corps. And I viewed it as a partial payment for citizenship. I viewed it really as a debt owed.
In 2013, I was elected mayor of Jersey City against the entire political machine on a candidacy very much like this one is today — grassroots oriented, substantive on policy. And Jersey City’s been one of the best renaissance stories in the entire country. We’ve been the state leader on almost every single metric. And it doesn’t happen by accident. When people say that, ‘Of course Jersey City would change, it’s three miles from New York City.’ I always say the same thing. I say it’s been three miles from New York City for 250 years.
The reality is our campaign is different because it’s about three things in detail. The first thing is really about talking about the corruption tax that you all pay in New Jersey. It is wrong. And how do we change that? The second thing is we are more detailed on policy and substantive than any campaign Democrat or Republican. And the third thing is when we talk about Donald Trump and Musk — not talking about platitudes of what we possibly will do and we’re gonna fight just to say something — concrete steps of actions I will take to protect New Jersey and push back. So thank you for coming out today. I’m looking forward to the conversation.
Mikie Sherrill:
Well, hi, my name is Mikie Sherrill, and it is wonderful to be here tonight. You know, the first event I attended when I had South Orange and Maplewood in my district was a Democracy Strikes Back event with Tom Malinowski.
And I thought it was appropriate then, and I think the name is even more appropriate tonight as we sit here. And I’ve always fought hard for democracy and for this country. I took my first oath to the Constitution when I was a teenager. I served as a Navy helicopter pilot, as a Russian policy officer, as an outreach and reentry coordinator, as a federal prosecutor. And now I serve in Congress. And you know, when I think about what it’s gonna take, I think about the fact that I was taught in the military that you run to the fight. That’s what I’ve always done. So when I was told in 2018 that I could never win the 11th district of New Jersey, when Michael Moore ran a ficus tree against Rodney Frelinghuysen to prove that it didn’t matter, — ficus tree, Democrat, nobody could win it — I knew something different was going on, and that’s why I ran for Congress. And that’s why with the work of so many people on the ground, we built the largest red to blue swing in the entire nation.
And then I kept going. And when I got into Congress, I was cold. I couldn’t get anything done. Congress was broken. And yet, in only my second term, I became the most effective member from the New Jersey delegation. Again and again and again, working hard for people. And now I think the most important role we have here in New Jersey is the governor of New Jersey. So we can fight back against what’s going on in Washington, build the houses we need, drive down utility costs with clean power, invest in our broken healthcare system, and reinvest in the future of this state. So that’s why I’m running for governor. And I am so impressed with all of you here today who want to take part in this election. Thank you.
Nancy Solomon: Okay, let’s get this party started. So affordability, as we all know, is a big issue in this campaign. It’s a big issue in the country. This is one of the most expensive places to live in the country. And let’s start with this. My property taxes are too high. So traditionally it’s been Republicans who fight about property taxes and talk about them and wanna lower them. And I’m curious if that’s changing. … Do you want property taxes to go down? Do you think that the way the process works, the way your properties are assessed, that the inequities from house to house to house, do you think the system is problematic and you want it changed? Or is this an issue that is important to you or not? …Governor Murphy created the ANCHOR rebate. The question for all of you in 30 seconds is whether you think a rebate is the way to provide property tax relief. And if not, what would you do differently?
Mikie Sherrill:
Well, Nancy, if you think Democrats don’t care about property taxes, you haven’t been following my campaigns like I thought you were. Because I have been fighting property taxes here in New Jersey since I got into office with the state and local tax [SALT] deduction cap, and now here fighting to get better shared services so we can drive those costs down. I think that is the place you start making sure that with all of our municipalities that we are pushing in, so we can have shared services, whether it’s mechanics on our firefighting engines, or whether it is sharing our municipal court system or even the administration of some of our schools. We have got to do better and spend more efficiently. We also have to make sure that we are driving down costs in general in the state. We have to build more homes if we are gonna drive down mortgages and rental costs. We have to get more clean power to the grid if we’re gonna drive down utility costs. And we have got to address our broken healthcare system to drive down medical costs.
Steve Fulop:
Let me start with, I think property taxes is problematic. It’s house by house. You need to change the reval process. I know that from being a mayor, how that works. But there’s a couple things broadly speaking that we need to address. I touched broadly on the corruption tax that you pay in New Jersey. You pay because you have county chair people that disproportionately control the system that also work for Horizon and PSE&G. And that is an embedded cost in the system. Secondly, the school funding formula needs to change. It needs to be addressed because it directly impacts your property taxes. And you need a governor that is bold enough to do that. Third, the revenue side of the conversation is really problematic. You need to address the property tax brackets because a millionaires’ tax from 20 years ago is not a millionaires’ tax today. You need to really think about that. The vacant land farm tax open space that people like Donald Trump don’t pay $250,000 because they have three goats — or you could have two beehives and not pay taxes — needs to be revisited. It’s $500 million directly to your bottom line, okay. A lot of things that we can do, important to address property taxes.
Ras Baraka:
I would say that giving people a rebate without reducing the cost is a gimmick. Because the dollar becomes minimized if you keep giving people money. But the costs keep going up, right? So the rebate is really a trick, a ruse. The reality is we need to lower the costs, we need to lower healthcare costs, and we need to lower the cost for schools. Those are the two things that drive your property taxes, school and healthcare costs. Through reference based pricing, you’d be paying at least 150% above Medicare. Right now, we’re paying 200% to 300% above that. If we did that, we would save over a billion dollars in two years for our state.
If we had unified school districts, we have too many school districts. We have more school districts than we have cities. If we unified the school districts, we lower people’s taxes and share the services along those lines. And the tax brackets are upside down. You have to make ’em right side up. There are people who make millions of dollars who pay less in property tax than you pay if you make a $100,oo and 150,000 bucks. Period.
Sean Spiller:
Look, when I’m talking to folks around the state, they talk about how do you make things more affordable. And that means keeping more money in your pocket. That’s why I look at the big cost drivers, right? It is about making sure we keep down the cost of rising healthcare costs. It’s about making sure housing costs are more affordable. Both first term home buying and also rents. It’s about the quality of early education and childcare that costs families $19,000. And it’s the energy cost that we pay. All of these things keep more money in your pockets when we can keep them down. But when we talk about property taxes specifically, I know this as a mayor, the only way you keep it down is if you invest as a state in your priorities. And for far too long, we get these unfunded mandates. And then the only way a mayor or a council can do anything to address it is to raise property taxes. As governor, I’ll invest in our priorities, invest in the things that we say we’re committed to, like housing, healthcare quality, early education, childcare, the environment, and certainly the green economy. Those investments will keep our property taxes down so we don’t keep leaving it to each municipality to have to raise these dollars.
Nancy Solomon: Aa couple of you mentioned housing prices and rent as a major component proponent of the high cost of living in New Jersey last year. Governor Murphy signed a new law to overhaul towns’ affordable housing obligations. How would you implement that law and what other actions would you take to address high rents and high home prices?
Ras Baraka:
First, there needs to be a statewide rent moratorium. Stop increasing the rent for at least two or three years. It takes 18 months to build housing. We have to build at least 30,000 units of housing a year. Right now we’re building 3,000 to 5,000 units. You have to turn into a public works project. You invest money by using either your pension or the tax credits we use and put it in a fund and let investors invest in that fund and begin to create a public works project across the state. We begin to build housing next to transit. Immediately we start there. The state should lead this process and not leave it in the hands of municipalities. We also check all of the investment bankers that are buying houses as LLCs, buying three or four or 5, 20, 30 at one time, artificially driving in our market. We stop that and we get first right of refusal to community based developers so that they could develop low income housing or affordable housing without the same return on investment that private investors need.
Steve Fulop:
I agree on the private equity front, and I’ll go a step further. The algorithms that set rent leveling prices need to be banned entirely. What I’m gonna also tell you is that Trenton needs to take the lead as it relates to transit oriented development. Nobody has built more than Jersey City has. How the EDA incentivizes the development needs to change dramatically. Places like Jersey City, places like Hoboken don’t participate in the numbers as it relates to the entire state quotas as it relates to affordability. And Trenton needs to be a partner, incentivizing those municipalities that are partnering and building housing. Today, the entire conversation is co-opted by the NIMBYs. And because there’s no transparency to what you are doing as a mayor, and Trenton needs to lead and say, this is where your municipality is fulfilling their obligation or not fulfilling their obligation. And then give dollars directly, whether it’s infrastructure, school funding tied to people that are cooperating. Leadership starts at the front from the governors. It can’t be platitudes. They have to execute with using the dollars that Trenton has as leverage to help mayors build.
Mikie Sherrill:
So this is the number one thing I hear about from people, whether it’s the woman who’s paying 70% of her income in rental prices, which is never gonna allow her to get ahead. The retired woman who had to go back to work because she couldn’t afford her rent. Or the young couple who just can’t get into a house and lost bid after bid after bid. And that’s why we’ve gotta build more. We have a supply problem. We have the second worst supply in the nation right now. We have got to build more homes. So how do we do that? We’ve gotta give incentives for people to remediate and repurpose commercial properties. We have to make sure that we have first time home buyer programs so they can help with that down payment. And then we also have to fix our permitting and regulatory process. Right now can take up to four years to get to building homes. That costs entirely too much as you wait to do it, compared with Texas, which has four days on some of their permitting. So those are the three things I’d do to get building right away.
Sean Spiller:
It’s not just about building more though, right? I’ve seen it in Montclair. I’m really proud to pass the first ever rent control law in Montclair because of rising prices. But when you just keep building it, they’re building high end luxury units that we can’t afford. So I’m happy to hear others talking about it now. But I’ve been saying from the start, my first home in Montclair was a two family home. Took me two years to be able to afford it. You cannot get that home right now because they’re getting bid and bought up by LLCs, venture capitalists, Wall Street. They’re jacking up the rents when they get it or if we have to bid against it. It’s raising our mortgage rates. I propose that we have a period where we, the people have the chance to buy homes first, where we’re not competing against them. Let’s make the banks put those houses they’re sitting on back on the market instead of dripping them back on to keep prices high. On the rental side, let’s not leave it to developers to build 400 high end units with 20 that are affordable. As governor, I will invest so we build 50 — 20 that are affordable, 20 for seniors, 10 for workforce housing. Different layers that we make sure housing is more affordable because that’s our job as government. Make it more affordable for folks like us.
Nancy Solomon: The state budget spends more than it takes in. Budget geeks call that a structural deficit. This year, because all the covid relief money is gone, we’re going to see cuts to services. The think tank New Jersey Policy Perspective is recommending an overhaul of the New Jersey tax system, most notably by creating three new tax brackets and raising the rates on those who make in those brackets more than $2 million, more than $5 million and more than $10 million. Would each of you please, one by one, tell me whether you would support any proposal to raise taxes on the super wealthy in New Jersey.
Steve Fulop:
Yes. It’s one of the first things I led with, with regards to the affordability conversation. I think readdressing taxes is imperative. I talked about the farmland tax, which is $500 million. I talk often about the transportation tax, which funds New Jersey Transit. As a mayor, I understand that I have political capital in those first 60 or 90 days that you will never have again for the next three and a half years. If you are going to fix New Jersey, you need to be bold in those first couple months, willing to raise revenue and do the tough things on tough conversations. It’s the only way to fix it. And the short answer is, yes, I would be supportive of all that.
Mikie Sherrill:
I’m happy to look at proposals to raise taxes on the super rich, but I don’t think that should let us off the hook for driving down costs for people. And we have got to do that with affordability. We have a problem, as I’ve laid out with housing. We have utility costs going up because PJM has refused to add some of our cheap clean power into the grid. We have a healthcare crisis in the state where sometimes getting sick is a one-way ticket from the middle class into poverty. So all of this has got to be addressed in the vision that we have to drive a different state here, a different form of government here than everything we see coming from Washington DC.
Sean Spiller:
Folks, we’ve gotta address the income inequality that continues to grow here, that we have all been suffering from as we’re fighting over the scraps that are left for us. Absolutely, we have to look at a more fair tax policy. And I’ve said from the start, as we’re looking at Donald Trump right now, who’s taken $1.1 billion out of our schools, who’s then going after Medicaid and Medicare and affecting our seniors and our youth, we see the dollars they’re pulling out of voting unless we start checking IDs and all these other things, we are losing massive dollars. I’m saying we’re gonna have to revamp our tax structure here in New Jersey to get every single one of those dollars that Donald Trump and his puppet master Elon Musk are pulling out of our pockets in our programs. We need to go after those very dollars and bring them back here in New Jersey through our tax code. That’s how we support the programs and the services that New Jersey residents need. Yes, it’s about making things more affordable through the actions, as I’ve done in designing healthcare plans and making sure we’ve got rents that are affordable — all the things I’ve mentioned, but we cannot make up for the losses we’re gonna see under Donald Trump. We’re gonna have to make sure the wealthy and the ultra rich corporations are paying their fair share.
Ras Baraka:
So the short answer is yes. In fact, we’ve adopted the policy perspectives recommendations in our platform. What we also need to understand is that since when Chris Christie was the governor, he gave $15 billion over the last years after him to the super wealthy in this state. Those tax cuts were never repealed. They were never brought back and never reinstated. And under Democrats, Democrats left it there. Democratic legislators, democratic governors never changed that. And so now we have a financial crisis. We either pull that money back and put it back in our budget. That’s number one. And we need to turn, like you said earlier, turn the tax code upside down, or I should say right side up to make sure that it’s, even if we went to a restaurant and you left the restaurant and you left me with the bill, they’re not gonna lower the bill for me. They’re gonna make me pay your portion of the bill. And that’s what’s happening. They ran out on the bill and middle class New Jersey. And so Americans are paying that bill at the expense of the super wealthy. We can’t subsidize them any longer.
Nancy Solomon: I’d like to talk a little bit about racial disparities in New Jersey. There was a study by New Jersey Institute for Social Justice that found that the Black/white wealth gap has doubled since 2020. The median household wealth for white families in New Jersey is $662,000. And in Black and Latino New Jersey, the median household wealth is just under $20,000. That’s a huge $640,000 wealth gap. What kind of programs would you create as governor to close this gap?
Mikie Sherrill:
I don’t think we can be surprised at that when we see the disparities in education in this state and we see the racial segregation in this state. That is why we have to get, push in better educational programs. That’s high intensity tutoring, especially making sure at the third grade level, that is where we have to have our children reading by third grade. Right now, in some cities, only about 36% of the children are reading at the correct level at third grade. We have to make sure there’s access because if you can’t read, you’re not gonna be doing math, you’re not gonna be doing science. You have to do better there. And again, we need to push into building houses the first time homeowner buyer programs. Because if we want to create generational wealth in the state, we need to get people into home ownership. The disparities between white home ownership and Black home ownership is about 70% to less than 40% — 70% for white families, less than 40% for Black families. So if we want to create generational wealth, and if we want to ensure all of our kids have opportunity, that’s where we push in.
Sean Spiller:
I’ll say this, and quite frankly I’ll speak to it as a Black man in America. I find it troubling when I sometimes hear, well, listen, part of it is we’ve gotta have you be be better educated. I I don’t agree with it. We need to change systems right here in this state. When we talk about creating new things, let’s work on the things we have right now. Because right now, if you’re a small business owner and if you’re Black and minority or women owned, you’re excluded from the process because all of the metrics we use favor white men and their businesses. If we’re talking about trying to buy that first home, talk about the banks. Well, the mortgage rates that they lend to Black folks are higher than they are to others. Let’s talk about that. Let’s fix that system, right? If we’re talking about any one of these systems, they are designed right now to get us exactly what we’ve gotten. So if we’re not gonna change the systems, don’t add more. Don’t keep doing more of the same. We’ve gotta look at what’s happening now and say, blow them up, change them. Let’s make sure they don’t disadvantage and favor certain over others. That’s how we make the changes to make folks have the opportunity at wealth and future wealth.
Ras Baraka:
I don’t know if Donald Trump can read. He’s got a whole bunch of houses. But at the end of the day, the things that drive the wealth gap — let’s take Essex County — Essex County has about 20,000 additional Black families than white families in Essex County, but white families in Essex County own more homes than black and brown families put together in this county. That’s just a fact. So home ownership is what’s driving the wealth gap. The other thing that’s driving the wealth gap is investment in small businesses. Well, the state invests less than 1% of its procurement dollars in Black, brown and women businesses. Let’s look at Essex County. Essex County invests less than one half of 1% in Black, brown and women businesses in this county. Which means that Essex County’s procurement process is worse than the state of New Jersey. That’s a problem. This is why we have a growing wealth gap in a state that is crying that it is the most Democratic state, the bluest state. We have not been able to fix these inequities because we have not had the will nor the education to do that. But those in power have not been educated themselves on the problem enough to be able to fix the problem. So here we are.
Steve Fulop:
I think there’s two answers to this. I think there’s a near term way to address it, and I think we need to be thinking about it long term in a more comprehensive way. The near term: clearly there’s a problem with the set-asides and how we procure business as it relates to minority businesses. We need more integration, more handholding, more education in order to get people involved in the business side. And we need more flexibility for them from the bidding standpoint because they don’t have the bonding and the bandwidth in order to compete with some of the larger businesses. Y ou need to be forcing directors and leadership to change their habits so they get multiple bids. Those are all things that you need to be doing in the short term. Long term, Governor Murphy has missed the opportunity around addressing segregation in housing and segregation in schools. He pushed it to the courts instead of a willingness to address it. In order to address inequality in New Jersey, you need to address the segregation issue that it is clear as day in New Jersey. And as governor, I outlined it in everything I do. We would be bold and forward in making sure that that’s confronted.
Nancy Solomon: Well, that’s a perfect segue to the next part of the question, which is about segregation. We’re segregated by community and that means the schools are segregated. And as it was brought up, we have a lawsuit to stop that segregation and it’s winding its way through the courts and the state is fighting it. So if elected, what would you do to integrate schools in New Jersey?
Sean Spiller:
First, I think it’s important to note, we do have the most segregated communities. And we’ve gotta address that with housing. So housing has gotta be part of the conversations. [It’s] why I talk about making sure we’ve got housing that’s affordable in every single community. But with the regard to our schools, we need to do things like we’ve done in Montclair, where every school is a magnet school that I as a parent have to rank and decide where to go. But the school district looks and makes sure they look at a number of factors to ensure that all of our schools are diverse. Now that means a little bit more cost in terms of busing and getting kids everywhere. But that’s where you start. And I wouldn’t wait for a court order to do it. In many communities, like Jersey City is a good example, it’s one of the most segregated communities in the community within the school system. Make the school choice options in that community so you desegregate and then use the school funding formula to incentivize communities around it, to open up the seats to allow kids from nearby. So busing isn’t too far to be able to go. And again, you are now diversifying that student population and the resources that the parents and others bring. That’s how we continue to grow this voluntarily. And I certainly as governor would not wait for a court to take action. That’s the action I would take day one.
Ras Baraka:
So I would say that definitely we need to move beyond the court. And Murphy missed an opportunity to make history here in the state of New Jersey. Obviously we should combine school districts. I think that that is an answer that we can begin moving on immediately. I think we revise the school funding form to give bonuses to schools that are allowing for diversity in their school to figure out a way to get more students in those seats from surrounding communities. You have to get rid of the zip code law that makes people an illegal person if they send their kids to schools outside of the zip code they live in. Need to get rid of that immediately. I honestly don’t think busing is the answer because you know, it is gonna be difficult. And 50% of the people in our city of Newark don’t own a car. And busing is gonna be hard. It’s gonna leave a couple of people behind. And so it’s important for us to change the makeup of the schools and bring schools together. You need to have magnet schools on a county level that allow kids to go from all over the place, but also figure out a way to allow principals to make kids get in those seats that don’t necessarily live in the school district.
Steve Fulop:
I agree with all of that around county schools and school funding formula, and that’s how you address the segregation. I think the bigger issue around housing is how do you confront home rule where you have mayors that push back against the opportunity or the obligation to build housing that’s integrated. We’ve outlined a very clear plan that is unique to anyone on how Trenton will have leverage over those smaller municipalities to force them into zoning changes and obligations that they’re unwilling to do today. Secondly, I think we should be thinking about transportation as intertwined with opportunity around desegregation. You need to build the infrastructure and properly invest in New Jersey Transit so that the housing and the schools have opportunities that are intertwined with mobility. And we have the most comprehensive plan around transportation by far. It’s something I’m passionate about and I believe it’s intertwined closely with housing, education, desegregation.
Mikie Sherrill:
We have some of the most segregated schools in the nation because we have some of the most segregated neighborhoods in the nation. And that’s what we have to remedy. And that’s why I really focused on building more houses, driving down the cost of housing and then having first-time homeowner support so that we can have access to home buyers for across our state. We also, though I do agree with the idea that we can have county-based magnet schools, whether they’re occupational schools, STEM schools, etc. This can both add to the ability to integrate our school system, but at the same time, taking some of the burden off the locality so you can drive down some of the property taxes as well in the different towns.
Nancy Solomon: So this past year we saw the end of the [county] line. That’s the way election ballots give a leg up to candidates endorsed by the party machines. And this is a two-part question. Beyond that, change the end of the county line, do you think New Jersey government at its highest levels, I’m not talking about local towns, but at the highest levels of New Jersey government, do you think it’s corrupt? And if so, what would you reform? And please address specifically what you think about the proper role of the party organizations. Are they machines that undermine democracy and wield too much political influence? Or are they legitimate ways to organize political leadership in the party?
Ras Baraka:
I’m gonna answer the latter part first. Sure. I participated in the conventions across the state of New Jersey because I wanted to find out how they were gonna go and have an opportunity to talk to people that I would’ve probably been excluded from four years ago. I would say that that process was wildly different up and down the state of New Jersey. Some of it was more democratic than others, right? Some folks gave you access to committee folks. They gave you phone numbers. They did it honestly. They allowed you to speak to people at the same time. Frankly, some of the things — they allowed people to vote while you were speaking. They were voting while you were talking, or they voted before you spoke, or they didn’t give you access to the people. All kinds of wild and strange things were happening, because people were trying to hold on to the bit of power that they had. And I think that that whole process should be uniform across the state for both sides, whether it’s Democrat or Republican or whoever has a convention. It should be that way. I also think that we should honor what the judge’s decision was. I think what the state legislature did was close to the decision, but not the actual decision, that people are trying to hold on to vestiges of power without releasing democracy to many people. We can’t be the Democratic party and refuse to participate in democracy.
Nancy Solomon:
And do you think that New Jersey is corrupt at the highest levels of government? Mayor Baraka?
Ras Baraka:
Do I think it’s corrupt? Yeah, I think some people are corrupt. Yes, absolutely. I think that the system is designed to favor those who are wealthy, designed to favor those who are connected, designed to favor those who are chosen and not the majority of the people in this state. That’s what makes it corrupt. The system makes it corrupt and people who protect that system become corrupted.
Steve Fulop:
I touched earlier on the corruption tax, and I’m gonna say, yes, the system is corrupt. When you have a state party chairman that acts as a lobbyist on behalf of Horizon, PSEG, hospitals, it speaks to the fact that the party is corrupt. It’s misguided, it’s wrong. Now, let me go a step further. It still needs to change. How do you change it? We are supporting primaries throughout New Jersey because primaries create better candidates, better policy, more accountability to the voters. We stand alone in pushing that because it’s good government, giving people a choice — actually here as well in this district. Number two, as governor, I’m unapologetic. I will push for ranked choice voting. It is the natural next progression in how we should vote.
Then look, the governor needs to change transparency. OPRA [Open Public Records Act] needs to be rolled back to what it was before the election. Transparency law needs to be rolled back [inaudible]. This June primary is a fundamental question on what these county parties are about. And my bet is that they are lethargic and stale and lazy because of the county line. And we are gonna show that on June 10th.
Mikie Sherrill:
So the last question first, because it’s so easy. Yes. We just had a senator sent to jail for taking gold bars. So yes, there is corruption at the very top levels of our government here in New Jersey. And then as far as where we need to go, we need to do things like same-day voter registration, making sure that we have computer generated picks for the placement on the ballot and the other things that were suggested. Then going forward, what do the conventions mean? I think we’re all trying to figure that out now. And I would agree each convention felt very different. There were some I went to, I participated in every single one. There were some I went to knowing I would lose. I did, yes, tell the people down in South Jersey that I only ate Taylor Ham. I knew I was gonna lose that convention anyway, but nevertheless.
The best conventions were a group of people. And you’d go into a room much like this one, people that were some of the most dedicated people in the county, some of the people that were gonna phone bank and they were gonna knock doors and they were gonna get the vote by mails out and they were gonna talk to their friends about how important this election was. And it can be, when done right, a great organizing principle for the Democratic Party to, in February, get a group of people to start caring about your election, when many people don’t even realize we have one coming up. And so that can be really great momentum. At their worst, they’re not transparent. They make people doubt their democracy and they make people question who’s actually making the decisions. So I think we can do great conventions here. I think it’s important for a Democratic party to be strong and to get people out and to get people engaged. But we do see different systems across the state right now.
Sean Spiller:
I’ll say this. I don’t think people really question how decisions are made. I think everyone in this room knows exactly how decisions are made and who’s making them. And I think that’s part of the problem when we see hundreds of thousands of Democrats stay home in the last presidential, and we wonder why. When we see what we call apathy, right? When we know the democratic process is supposed to work by us going out, having individual conversations with folks around us, as a committee person, bringing that back, finding the candidate who matches that That’s not what we’ve seen. I’ve participated in all of these conventions as well, where folks have already decided who they’re going with. The bosses have already said who they’re supporting. But at the end of the day, the simple answer is this, follow the money. Because the reason the political bosses, the politically powerful, others want these positions, want to keep control, is to control the dollars that go with it, the positions that they appoint, the patronage that it entails.
All of the things that hurt each and every one of us. And at the end of the day, we see it ties back to how campaigns are funded, right? When you see the political bosses that have to give the dollars, when you see the very rich developers that fund, when you see the Wall Street elite that give the dollars, we all then are surprised by the gaps in income. Or we’re surprised that we don’t get a shot. The system is rigged against us. And that’s why I’m running for governor, because this is our chance with what Andy Kim did and others opening that door, to break it wide open and say, finally, let’s have somebody who’s representing us with every single decision that I make. This is that rare opportunity. This is that chance. And that’s why I’m running.
Nancy Solomon: So let’s talk about electability because I know that that’s a huge concern people have. New Jersey has more Democrats than Republicans, but there are almost as many independent voters as there are Democrats. And that’s why any statewide election can go either way. And that’s how we got eight years of Chris Christie. During this statewide primary, there’s often a debate among Democrats, with one side saying, it’s important, it’s crucial to elect a candidate who can beat the Republicans in the fall. And then the other side argues that this is the moment, finally, the moment has come when we need, we can elect a more progressive and leftist candidate. And that is the candidate who represents our hearts and who will do everything that we want them to do. And now is the time to double down and go for that person. So here we are in that moment, and I bet we could split up the two sides. You know, the room could split in half. So tell me, which candidate are you? Are you the person who can beat the Republican in November? Or are you the progressive who’s going to fight for all the progressive values that the Democrats want? And you can, if you want to try to get away with saying you’re both, fine, but I want receipts. You need to give me facts to back up your claim. What makes you the person who can do both?
Steve Fulop:
I think it’s most important to be bold and have a vision and be clear that you can articulate to the public on what you’re going to do. You need to be able to speak to Independents and Republicans because they are part of the conversation. You need to amplify Democrats with a clear vision. But you need to be able to go into uncomfortable rooms and convince people around transgender identity, around women’s reproductive rights, around the Immigrant Trust Act on why those make sense for everybody. If you’re not able to do that and unwilling to do that, you are not gonna win. I will tell you that a lot of these endorsements are intertwined with relationships, and I’m sure everybody here knows that. The most important one to me is the College Democrats of America and the College Democrats of New Jersey, because they are not tainted. They don’t work for anybody. They’re not biased. We all competed for them. They endorsed me because we were clear on how it will impact them in the future. I think I am best situated to be competitive in November and win the election in November by a large margin.
Mikie Sherrill:
I’m sort of from the school of politics of “Tell people what you’re gonna do, go do it, and tell people you’ve done it.” And I think effective leadership has been really critically important in these times when so many people have lost faith in government to do anything. So I’m the candidate up here — I’m the only one who’s actually run against a Republican. We know that’s going to be a key part of this race because in the fall, that’ll be the first time in 50 years that as Democrats we’ve gotten a third term of a Democratic governor.
I’ve also built out the broadest coalitions. I’ve brought out about 235,000 people in a voting year. I’ve grown people’s turnout throughout my district. Combined, this group has brought out about 60,000 votes combined. So it’s just a different type of campaign you run. And I’ve done that by bringing out grassroots progressives, by bringing out labor, by bringing out those people that have lost faith in the Democratic party. By then turning to the general and bringing out the swing. And then even getting about a quarter of moderate Republicans, because I believe that when you go to them and tell them about what you’re gonna do, and tell them why you’re standing against Donald Trump and unelected billionaire Elon Musk, and how it’s harming them, that they understand why this country’s in peril and why they need to vote Democrat this time.
Sean Spiller:
I do think this is our chance to do things differently, because when you hear all that, you can’t do it while you’ve taken money from Elon Musk, right? There is a challenge that we are all facing right now. When I knock on doors, people say, Sean, what’s the difference? What’s the difference between any of you? And it’s because we haven’t shown boldly that when we get elected, this is who we’re fighting for. Well, let me tell you, this is who I’ve been fighting for all my life as a labor leader. Yes, knock those doors, organize, mobilize, know how to win elections, right? Been elected, mayor, councilperson 12 years, know how to win those elections. But then it’s about making a difference in people’s lives. And right now, what we get is either a party that is all bought in and sold out to the ultra rich and the wealthy corporations, or we got a party that’s partially sold out.
We need to get somebody that’s fighting for what we need each and every day. And that’s what this election is about. When I talk about affordability with housing, when I talk about affordability with childcare, early education, when I talk about it with rising energy costs and the environment, when I talk about these issues, they’re not conservative, they’re not liberal, they’re not Democrat, they’re not Republican. They’re what we need in this state. And we finally need somebody who’s fighting for us, not beholden to the dollars that help get that elected, which stop us from doing something about every single one of these issues, every single time. That’s why this is the time for change.
Ras Baraka:
If I thought that policies and plans by themselves will win an election, then Elizabeth Warren would be on her second term, and Donald Trump wouldn’t be the president of the United States. People need inspiration and hope. They need to realize that when you’re gonna fight for them. That all of our issues are the same across zip code, across nationality, across where we live. They have to believe and trust that you’re gonna make that happen. The kids in your house that you left there when you went to go vote, need to tie their shoes and sneakers up and say, mom, wait for me. I’m coming with you now.
Who can inspire and give those people the reason to come outta their houses and go vote? And I’m gonna tell you something else. I went to an event with Chuck Schumer. He spoke, they asked him, how are we going to keep or maintain the Senate? He said, “Increase the Black vote by three percentage points in Alabama, in Georgia.” But that didn’t happen. It didn’t happen in Michigan, and it didn’t happen in New Jersey. We need to increase the votes of the people who we’ve been overlooking. Black and brown folks. And I can get those people out to vote. I know it. And guess what? You know it too. Do something that you know should happen. Something different. Ras Baraka, June 10.
Nancy Solomon: I have some individual questions. One question for each of you, and then we’re gonna take questions from the audience. I’ve got a lot of questions I had to ditch, so I hope the audience is gonna pick it up because I wanted to find out how you’re gonna fight Trump. I wanted to hear about transgender rights, and I wanted to talk about New Jersey Transit. So ask those questions.
Let me start with you, Mr. Spiller. Questions have been raised about your use of teacher union money, $40 million of it to support your candidacy. We see all the flyers and billboards that the money buys, but what evidence can you provide us to show that the actual rank and file teachers want you to spend their union dues on your candidacy?
Sean Spiller:
I smile when I hear a question like this, because every single person, including everyone up here who happily took NJEA dollars, right? When they run for offices, before we supported, we’ve been part of a system where we understand that the only way the average folk can get some kind of power, say, is to collectively come together to raise our voices, use our dollars, right? Voluntarily join a union outta which I support, obviously, to be able to speak. And I’ve been proud to be out there knocking doors for all these candidates, helping to fund all these candidates when they ran for their races. But the only time folks raise a question is when they say, “Whoa, whoa, whoa. An actual educator wants to run to be governor. Why would you want to do that? Because we want somebody who’s fighting for the middle class right now.
No, I get it. But listen, we need somebody right now who continues to fight for all of us in the middle class, right? Somebody who is not saying, we’re just gonna hand dollars to others and hope they do the right thing. Because for too long we’ve seen the result. I think you have too. For too long we see that there is just a focus on the rich, the wealthy, and not us. So I say this, we are the most little “d” democratic organization there is as NJEA. I’m proud to unanimously have gotten the endorsement and support. I’m proud to unanimously, over 150 representatives come together to say, we wanna put these dollars in, because it is about focusing on a future for all of us in the middle class, not leaving it up to donors funding folks for election, wealthy folks who control this country. This is the chance to change that right now. That’s why I’m running.
Solomon: Let me ask a follow up. What do you say to people who are critical of the funding that you’re getting, and say that it’s a conflict of interest, that you’re the president of the union and it’s spending money on something that directly benefits you?
Sean Spiller:
Let me say this. I don’t actually even understand the question. In this sense, we are totally fine. When Wall Street has folks from Goldman Sachs running for governor, we never say, what’s the problem? What’s going on here? We’re fine. When we see the developers funding candidates and they say, no problem. The only time we have an issue is when there’s somebody from the working class who’s part of a group who say, Hey, listen, we are pooling our dollars to fund somebody we know has been fighting for the middle class for all the time we’ve known ’em. That’s a good thing. And folks, if we talk about, and we want to talk about changing systems, we can’t change systems if we then go, well, listen guys, we gotta get the money from where you always get it. Because I can tell you right now, I can raise millions of dollars the same way others can raise it, but it means calling millionaires because every time I make that phone call to a middle class person, that $20, $25, $30 they can give. That’s what they can afford. But it’s an investment to change the system that needs changing. And that’s what this moment is about right now.
Nancy Solomon: Congresswoman Sherrill. We’ve already talked about the political machines a little bit, but I think that what I hear from people, progressive Democrats, is that their biggest concern about you is the endorsement from the Essex County Democratic Committee, which had the really bad idea of putting the word Inc after their name on the ballot — it’s not a good look. So what do you say to people who maybe are afraid that you are too mainstream for their taste, that you’re too moderate and they want more of a progressive, and the proof of this is your endorsement of the machine, which some people consider to be undemocratic.
Mikie Sherrill:
I’ve always hated labels. I know where people see me, but I think I have some very incredibly progressive values when it comes to things like abortion and civil rights and choice and gun rights and gun safety — I’m sorry, gun safety. But I also would say that in my first race, I did get the county line, largely because nobody actually thought I could win that race, and they didn’t really care. In fact, when I first told someone I was gonna run for congress in the 11th district, they said, “Well, that’s okay. Nobody really cares about the 11th district.” And so, I built that broad coalition. I’ve always run on building broad coalitions, on building grassroots support. It’s why I’m so proud of the labor support I have, the grassroots support I have.
I did advocate for, and we did see this year in Essex County, a secret ballot that was a secret ballot like many of the other conventions. It was open for a very long time. As I said, I’m gonna work hard to bring the Democratic party together. I think this is gonna be a really tough general election. I think we haven’t seen a third term of a Democrat for 50 years now. So I wanna bring everybody together, and certainly I’ve never been told what to do, and I don’t anticipate that will change.
Nancy Solomon: Mayor Baraka, during the 2022 mayoral race, you paid a consulting firm owned by your brother $77,000. At the same time, your brother was earning his full-time salary as your chief of staff at City Hall. Your wife was convicted of tax evasion related to consulting money she earned while working on your mayoral ball in 2015. So when Republicans, let’s say you’re the nominee and you win the primary, when Republicans start running ads 24/7 about these facts from your past, how are you going to convince voters that you’re the candidate they can trust?
Ras Baraka:
I think they just need to look at my record and the things that we’ve done around progressive values in the state of New Jersey. And then they look at the things we fought for and the people we fought for in the state of New Jersey, in the city of Newark, one of the most difficult cities in the state with some of the most compounding, intractable problems. My brother has a firm where he hires people to work on campaigns. Obviously that’s going to happen. He’s gonna continue to do that. He’s my brother. I trust him. He’s loyal. He fights in the street. He’s gonna continue to do that. And this company hires workers to come and they’re doing it now, hire workers to come and work on our work in the streets and work on our campaigns. That’s gonna continue to happen.
My wife made a mistake when she wasn’t my wife. I married her anyway, right? Because I love her. She has integrity. She probably has more integrity in her pinky than most of these people who are bringing this up, in their entire body. And I would stand and fight for my wife and my brother any time, any day of the week. And I’m proud to do that because my record is strong. And the things we not only fight for, but the things we’ve accomplished by reduction of crime, changing lead service lines, turning people who were in the projects for generations, making them into homeowners, right? Doing the things that were necessary in the city to improve working families lives. So I’m ready to have this fight. I really am, especially with a guy in the White House who has 34 felonies. I’m waiting for them to try to challenge me any of this stuff.
Steve Fulop: These are very hard questions.
Nancy Solomon: But they’re the last ones. I always save the nasty ones for the end. That’s what a journalist does when they interview people. You’ve said on this campaign that you’re the mayor of a large city — Newark and Jersey City are the two largest cities in New Jersey — that you have experience and the sort of executive experience to run state government and to do it well as you’ve run Jersey City. But in 2023, you ran a $90 million deficit that led to higher taxes and a credit downgrade. Then months later, there was a $21 million shortfall caused by property tax appeals that forced you to borrow more money to close the budget gap. So I’ve heard from people in Jersey City who are not happy about this. How can voters trust you with the state budget?
Steve Fulop:
Let me start by saying that is factually not true. That is driven by a letter to the editor that Jim McGreevy, who is running for mayor, wrote recently. Our finances actually have been upgraded the majority of the time from S&P and credit rating agencies. You could check that. I would push back on that with regards to 11 years of a budget. Seven, I think eight, this year have had flat and no tax increase. With regards to what people feel about me there, I’m the first three-term elected mayor in 75 years in Jersey City. So somebody there is voting for me with big numbers. I ran outside of the political establishment on a platform of reform. And I’m gonna go back one step further. There is nobody in New Jersey other than Phil Murphy, that has been more scrutinized by the press than me, because Terrence McDonald, the Jersey Journal, NJ.com, was assigned to me every day for 11 years, vetting everything. There is no secrets in my life. And for 12 years, we’ve run a good administration. There are no surprises. You could Google anything about me. I would put our record against anybody, and I’m best prepared to fight and win in November because of that.
Nancy Solomon:
I love Terrence McDonald, just so you know. Love him. Great reporter. NJ Monitor. Look it up. It’s a really great news organization.
