As Gov. Phil Murphy tries to burnish his image as someone who's putting progressive policies to work, he faces a major obstacle: A skittish Legislature led by members of his own party
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy can't seek a consecutive third term and, as a result, is free to focus on social issues that play to a national Democratic audience in early primary states. | Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/Getty ImagesNew Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy’s name is on the lips of Democrats around the country as a potential 2024 candidate should President Joe Biden decide not to seek a second term — and he’s not doing much to dissuade the talk.
“I think they realized after last year that the mood is different than it was just two years ago,” state Sen. Dick Codey, a former governor who’s often allied with Murphy, said in an interview. Murphy last year became the first Democratic governor in New Jersey to win reelection since 1977. But he did it by a far smaller margin than most expected, winning by just 3 points. The Democrat-led Legislature fared worse, suffering a net loss of seven seats in both houses, including the shocking upset of former Senate President Steve Sweeney. That cut down the party’s majorities to 24-16 in the state Senate and 46-34 in the General Assembly.
But it’s going nowhere. The ouster of Sweeney, a fiscally-conservative Democrat who often feuded with Murphy, was welcomed within the Murphy administration and by progressives. But the new Senate president, Nick Scutari, publicly“We passed what we could pass when I was there. Now you have one less member [in the Senate],” Sweeney said in a phone interview. “The Senate president said it correctly: It’s been settled. We settled it at the last session.
Both Scutari and the state Assembly speaker, Democrat Craig Coughlin, oppose moving the abortion access bill, and there’s little appetite in their own caucuses to do so.With abortion, Democratic state lawmakers are concerned about energizing the right wing of an already-volatile electorate ahead of midterms and next year’s state-level election, which is expected to have low turnout.
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