>> Major funding for Reporters Roundtable is provided by RWJ Barnabas health.

Let's be healthy together.

Rowan University, partnering with New Jersey businesses, transforming New Jersey's future.

Promotional support provided by New Jersey business magazine, the magazine of the New Jersey business and industry Association.

Reporting to executive and legislative leaders in all counties of the Garden State since 1954.

And by Politico's New Jersey playbook.

Online at Politico.com.

♪ David:'tis the season for candidates to declare themselves.

Are we ready to rumble?

It is Reporters Roundtable, I'm David Cruz.

Our panel includes Terrence McDonald, the editor at New Jersey monitor.

Daniel Han.

And P. Kenneth Burns.

We are going to hear from the panel in just a bit, but we begin with one of the as yet not officially declared candidates for governor.

He has run twice before, is the third time the charm for Republican former assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli who joins us now?

Assemblyman, welcome back to Roundtable.

Happy New Year, man.

>>.

To be with you, David.

Happy New Year and happy snow day.

David: Yes, for the rest of the state, not so much on the northeast.

You set after your loss in 2021 that you intended to run in 2024.

What is the Ciattarelli deadline and what are you mulling right now?

>> I will be declaring for governor sometime very soon.

Sometime in the next couple of months we will make that official declaration and I'm looking forward to doing so.

I continue to get up and down the state in support of Republican candidates talking about the kitchen table issues that we talked about in 2021.

I'm very much looking forward to the race.

David: So it is just a matter of timing right now.

What is the rationale for a vote for governor Ciattarelli?

You have run unsuccessfully twice before.

What are voters missing?

>> Despite all the things you did here in Murphy's recent state of the state, there are still a lot of things that need to be fixed.

We need a permanent reform to property taxes in New Jersey.

One example is freezing property taxes for everyone once they hit age 70 or limiting people's property taxes to a percent of their adjustable gross income.

Those are meaningful and permanent reforms.

Everything we have seen to date are gimmicks and are not sustainable in my opinion.

We need to make New Jersey a better place to do business especially on Main Street.

We continue to be ranked one of the were states in the country in which to do business.

We have a failing school system, David.

We have pockets, but on the whole our school system is failing our children.

We need age-appropriate curriculum and a respect for the role of parents in their children's education.

We need a high-impact curriculum for reading and math.

I think we also need school choice and possibly vouchers where school systems are failing children.

Those are still the issues.

Despite all the financial resources that have come Phil Murphy's way.

Those issues continue to plague New Jersey.

David: So you teed up my question kind of.

You heard the speech last week.

He talked about supporting an affordable housing bill.

16-year-olds getting voting rights.

AI moonshot.

Full pension benefits.

That's not a good record?

>> Listen, we can expect a state of the state to be the cheerleader in chief telling us about all his accomplishments, but when we start talking about 16 and 17-year-olds voting, my goodness, where are we going now?

And all the time that was spent on artificial intelligence.

What people care about is affording their groceries, affording property taxes.

If they are and entrepreneur, a mom-and-pop shop, being able to do business in the state.

If you are a parent and a failing school system, what are we going to do to help these families?

You didn't hear anything about that.

You didn't hear about our urban centers that are economically undeveloped and plagued by blight.

We need a major urban revitalization plan that will create opportunity for all.

Economic opportunity and educational opportunity.

We don't have that right now in our urban centers and no governor has had better opportunity to fix these permanent problems, long-standing problems, than Phil Murphy, but he hasn't done it.

David: Let me get a couple of panel questions in.

Dan, you had a good one.

>> With the start of County convention season, do you support or oppose the current County line system?

>> I support the county line system.

I know some people have a problem with it, but let's think about this for a second.

In every single county, you have between 300 and 800 county committee people whose job it is to vet the candidates on behalf of the party.

There is a history New Jersey a history New Jersey of people winning elections off the line, so I do believe in the County convention process.

I hold high the role of County committee people inventing and endorsing candidates.

So let's go down this road as we always have before knowing that there have been people who have won election primaries not having the line.

David: Kenny, you had a question?

>> If I may, let's not forget too that the line is determined by how the names are pulled out of a hat by the County Clerk.

Just because you have the endorsement doesn't necessarily mean you won't be in row a or column a.

There is a whole number of counterbalancing aspects to this.

David: All right, Kenny.

>> Assemblyman, I think back to your 2021 primary campaign and it appears that had the hard courtroom supporters coalesced around one candidate, you would have lost that night we had looking at the state of the party right now with people who had a history of being a moderate, do you find yourself having a bigger uphill climb to get the nomination in 2025?

>> Not her after our performance in 2021.

My job is to convince people that the goal is to win.

Not to be disagreeable, I think if you add up the vote count by my two opponents, they still come in a couple points less than what I had achieved.

I'm going to continue to go out there and talk about how to fix New Jersey and why I'm the candidate who provides the best opportunity to win in November.

I think our 2021 race when we won seven seats in the state legislature, 150 seats at the mean civil county level, a couple hundred Board of Education seats,, the energy I bring to the campaign and the way I talk about the kitchen table issues, I have coattails.

David: Is the state GOP getting more red and where are you on the spectrum?

Are you red or purple or blue?

>> I'm New Jersey, David.

David: You used that one on me a few times before.

>> You keep asking the same question, I will keep giving you the honest answer.

It all depends on the issue.

There are some issues where I might be considered extremely conservative.

Other issues I might be considered liberal.

I'm about making the state better so people can feel confident this is where they can find the home of their dreams, raise their family, retire here.

That is not the way people feel today.

I believe that we can do a better job in making people feel confident that New Jersey can be there home as it has always been for the Ciattarellis for the past hundred years.

David: Last time I saw you was that the league of municipalities.

I talked to a lot of Republicans and there was some soul-searching that they said was going on.

Is your party still searching for its soul as you head into this gubernatorial season and U.S. Senate season?

>> What got all the headlines last November where the legislative losses.

We gave back all the seats we won in 2021 and then some.

The Republican Party had some really great victories at the local level.

Cumberland County, Atlantic County, we won in Essex County, this Somerset County seat.

David: The victories underneath those legislative races is what you are looking at?

>> I'm sorry?

David: You are saying local wins.

>> well, yes.

David: The victories underneath the legislative wins that you took the Comfort in.

>> I don't see the glass is totally empty, I see it as half-full in terms of the victories we achieved at the municipal and county level.

Sadly, we were not so successful at the legislative level.

We could spend an entire segment talking about why that happened.

David: That's another segment though.

>> I think people are disappointed in what they see in Joe Biden.

I think they are disappointed in Phil Murphy.

They know there are problems to be fixed in my job is to tell them if you want change, you've got to make a change.

David: I have run out of time, I have one more question.

I need a one-word answer.

Are you a Donald Trump supporter?

>> I won't be voting for Joe Biden.

Listen, I want to be governor and there's a good chance Donald Trump might be the president.

I have an obligation to work with the President whoever he or she may be.

David: That's more than one word.

It was either a yes or no.

That were used your two options.

>> I have an obligation to work with the president whoever he or she might be and I won't be voting for Joe Biden.

David: So you are not going to make an endorsement?

>> I think it's up to the people to make endorsements.

David: all right.

Jack Ciattarelli may be announcing around soon.

Thanks for coming in with us.

>> thanks, David.

David: Panel, happy new year to you are.

Jack Ciattarelli, see the undeclared front runner?

>> If he is giving answers like that and I broke down a couple of choice words to follow me, parental choice in education, age-appropriate curriculum, is he still trying to get the Trump vote at the end of the day?

Like I said, have the Trump vote coalesced around one candidate, he would have lost that night.

It is telling that we have moderates like Nikki Haley who basically led in South Carolina the removal of the Confederate flag on the state capitol, but she can't give a straight answer about whether slavery was part of the reason that the Civil War happened.

That tells you that the GOP is still in soul-searching mode.

David: Still walking that fine line.

Terence, this race needs a John Bradner, doesn't it?

[LAUGHTER] >> I guess it depends on who you talk to.

I think Jack Ciattarelli is potentially a front runner because of all the people that we think may be running for the GOP nomination.

He is probably the one that has the most statewide name recognition because he ran the last time.

He could have won, it was possible.

If the polls have been more accurate, he might have won.

There might have been more enthusiasm on the GOP side.

Some voters might have stayed in because they thought it would be a blowout.

We have seen it before where people run for governor, lose, and then win against a different candidate.

David: all right, Dan, we heard Ciattarelli's reaction to the state of the state.

Some bills made it out of the lame-duck session, some got pushed.

What got done and what is at the top of the list for this new session?

>> I think that the two pieces of legislation that did get done that drew a lot of attention was the La Scala the compromise bill and the pay raises for lawmakers and future governors.

Just to break it down a little bit, during Governor Phil Murphy's state of the state address last year he pushed really hard for really sweeping reform that would have basically opened up, lifted caps on liquor licenses in the state, which are currently worth as much as millions of dollars.

The bill the governor ultimately signed lifts restrictions on breweries, which is something he had supported but wanted to tie to more broader liquor license reform.

The governor didn't get the liquor license reform he wanted initially.

It was far short of what he envisioned.

The new proposal he signed allows for licenses that are unused to be transferred to other municipalities, creates a provision to allow malls to open up new liquor licenses, but really far short of what he initially wanted.

And the other item that I mentioned before, raises in salaries for lawmakers for the first time in about two decades from around $49,000 to below $80,000.

David: It's coming up in 2024.

>> Yes, I think you are seeing a lot of talk about affordable housing.

In the governor mentioned that in his State of the state address.

As well as allowing 16 and 17-year-olds to vote.

The governors trying to push for some abortion measures he has supported.

So, we will see.

David: Terrance, the Murphy administration says the liquor license brewery Bill with some historic change, but he really just kind of nibbled around the edges, did he not?

>> Yes, that's true.

He is sort of trying to turn this defeat into a victory little bit.

He got tiny changes that might affect some towns.

The disconnect is that lawmakers probably end up in their local bars and restaurants more than the governor does and can probably speak to the people who own these liquor licenses and don't want them to lose their value.

David: More bars in the malls could be a bad thing, right?

[LAUGHTER] >> Sure.

For 250,000 dollars, you can get a beer at the freehold Raceway Mall food court.

David: Nice.

What about this affordable housing reform bill?

Senator Singleton says it is going to be his first bill of this new session.

The governor endorsed it.

It's happening, or is there more opposition then meets the eye?

>> We will see word goes.

Affordability has been the greatest hit Governor Murphy has often played over his administration.

Just give it time, we will see how the negotiations play out on that one.

Something needs to be done for sure.

David: All right, let's talk about this college Dems controversy situation.

The college Dems of New Jersey, their vice president says he felt threatened or pressured by a part-time coordinator for the state Democratic Party, also a college student.

The college Dems recorded the phone call.

We heard the recording and pressure is in the eye of the beholder, but I found this part of the conversation interesting.

Here is the parts -- part-time youth coordinator talking to the college Dems vice president supposedly trying to convince him to not endorse Andy Kim, but she says this to him.

>> I want you to know that I'm voting for Andy Kim.

I'm supporting him this primary.

Like I will be passing a vote for him.

I think he is the best person for young people.

David: To me, that was pretty telling because people say Murphy has tons of organizations support, but is a lot of that just kind of on paper?

>> I don't know.

We really are going to have to wait to find that out.

For all we know, this was this person's attempt to curry favor with a person she was trying to pressure.

This is all politics and it is super messy and college kids are involved, so it's even messier.

I don't know if that was sincere or her way of trying to buddy up to this person.

David: It's a good point.

The New York Times first reported the story.

Dan, the national young Dems are calling for an investigation.

>> Yes, they are.

The national college Dems, which is an affiliate of the DNC, requested that the DNC launch an inquiry into this looking at the role of the Murphy campaign and the state party.

I think it just really underscores how this is a sticky situation for the Murphy campaign and something that really unexpectedly came up out of nowhere.

David: Yes, this is pure politics, right?

But it plays into the Kim campaign narrative, no?

>> It does and then overall it is not a good look.

Especially if you listen to the radio version of ask Governor Murphy where the governor has been bullish on his wife being a good candidate.

Whether she is connected to it or not, at some point she has to say something to either disavow or something to address this brewing controversy.

David: Just for the record, the college student in question who made the phone call was not officially associated with the Murphy campaign.

They said her comments were out of order and inappropriate.

Pretty much that is probably where that is going to die, but it is the story that was brewing this weekend I thought it was interesting.

Terrance, 30 seconds of Snark on lawmakers voting to raise salaries for themselves?

[LAUGHTER] >> They haven't even been back to Trenton in a week and a half.

I don't know.

Look.

There is an argument to be made that raising the salary for lawmakers will attract people who are not independently wealthy or have second jobs to become lawmakers.

I don't know if this will necessarily do that.

I think the better idea is to raise it a tiny bit more and then ban outside jobs and then we have people who are strictly lawmakers and don't have any conflicts of interest.

David: But what fun would that be?

>> Assemblyman Brian Bergen said at the best when he told everybody, we don't work hard.

He said you don't work hard, but I'm including him.

David: That was a pretty impressive floor speech that he made.

On this 16 and 17-year-olds being allowed to vote in board of Ed elections, there is a lot of vehemence, people objecting to this.

They don't pay taxes!

They don't know who their congressman is anyway!

What is that about?

>> Most adults don't either.

I don't know how I feel about 16 and 17-year-olds voting in school board elections, but we are talking about school board elections.

Hardly anyone votes in them anyway.

We will probably see a dozen or 216 or 17-year-olds voting in the school board contests.

I don't know if it is worth all the anger.

David: The fear, Kenny, is that then they will start voting for mayor and governor and president and the Democrats are going to recruit them.

>> God forbid we have a younger generation that pays attention to what happens in their town or their school district.

You have student board of Ed members in a lot of places, so why not have a 16 and 17-year-old have a voice to support the voice they have on the board?

The vitriol is I think the kids say, OK, Boomer, but I'm not so sure.

[LAUGHTER] David: Dan, you are probably the one in the room closest to having been 16 years old.

Did you know what you were doing when you were 16 and would you have wanted to vote?

>> I will admit I was not looking at my local Board of Education when I was 16, but I was also not able to vote.

David: What is your sense, not to pick on you because you are the youngest guy in the room, what is your sense of young people today voting?

One of the kids we talked to one we covered this story made the point that this is an advocacy generation, that they are different than 16-year-olds were a generation ago.

Do you buy that?

>> Yeah, I mean that you do see a little bit more activism amongst younger people.

I think social media has a big part to play in all of that, there is a lot of political polarization that younger people are used to.

A lot of people are really only use to post 2016 trump era politics and not so much when it was considered I suppose that you could say politics then was a little bit more respectability amongst one another that you are not seeing these days.

David: All right, time for our only in Jersey segment, headlines and notes that are quintessentially Jersey.

Who has one for us?

>> Yes, mine is Larry Higgs had a story this week that said the feds were finally telling New Jersey to knock it off with their funny traffic safety signs.

[LAUGHTER] We are a pretty funny people.

But just too funny for the federal government.

[LAUGHTER] David: God.

Mine comes from Jersey City where the battle for the future of Liberty State Park is still being waged.

Paul Fireman is the owner of Liberty National Golf course right next door, billionaire, used to in Reebok.

He is the sole funding source for something called the People's Park foundation, which has been advocating for large-scale sports facilities inside the park while lamenting the lack of recreation facilities for neighborhoods around the park.

The irony here, Fireman has spent $2 million last year, $200,000 for the foundation's director, Bob Hurley, and hundreds of thousands more on public relations, lobbyists, and contributions to nonprofits by elected officials in and around Liberty State Park.

So how much did his foundation spend on helping to build or refurbish actual recreation facilities in the hood?

Hold for the answer.

It is zero.

And that speaks volumes about what the People's Park foundation is actually all about.

And that is roundtable for this week.

Terrance, Dan, Kenny, good to see well.

Thanks for coming on.

Thanks to Jack Ciattarelli for joining us.

You can follow the show on X and get more content including full episodes when you scan the QR code on your screen.

I'm David Cruz.

For all the crew at Gateway Center in downtown Newark, thanks for watching.

Stay warm.

>> Major funding for Reporters Roundtable with David Cruz is provided by RWJ Barnabas health.

Let's be healthy together.

Rowan University, educating New Jersey leaders, partnering with New Jersey businesses, transforming New Jersey's future.

Promotional support provided by New Jersey business magazine, the magazine of the New Jersey business and industry Association.

Reporting to executive and legislative leaders in all 21 counties of the Garden State since 1954.

And by politicos New Jersey playbook.

A topical newsletter on Garden State politics.

Online at Politico.com.

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