(theme music) From NJ PBS Studios, this is NJ Spotlight News with Brianna Vannozzi.

Hello, and thanks for joining us tonight.

I'm Brianna Vannozzi.

Coming up in the broadcast, we talk with Congresswoman Annalilia Mejia about her first week in Washington and her agenda while in Congress.

Plus, falling behind, we look at the concerning results of the state's first literacy screenings for grades K through 3.

And later, Democratic candidate Dr.

Tina Shaw discusses her push to turn District 7 blue.

First, though, let's get a check of the top headlines from Joanna Gagis.

Joanna.

Thanks, Brie.

A significant ruling from the U.S.

Supreme Court today dealt a win to a group of anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers.

Now, this case stems from an investigation that former New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin launched in 2022 against First Choice, the company that runs those centers.

Platkin accused them of engaging in deceptive practices, making donors believe they offered abortions as part of their services and recommendations.

Platkin's office demanded a list of First Choice's internal records, including information about its donors and its doctors.

Well, First Choice challenged that demand, and the case made it all the way to the U.S.

Supreme Court.

That decision came back today with a unanimous ruling in favor of First Choice.

Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote the opinion, citing a case from the 1950s, the NAACP vs.

Alabama.

In that case, Alabama demanded donor information from the NAACP, but the court ruled against Alabama, saying that turning over records violated their freedom of association rights under the First Amendment, which was a form of suppression.

Gorsuch said this demand from Platkin was no different, and referencing Platkin's many arguments in the case said, "Some are old, some are new, but none succeeds."

Well, Platkin said in a statement that he was disappointed with the ruling that he says, "makes it harder for women to access safe and effective life-saving medical and abortion care."

The ACLU sided with first choice in this case, which now goes back to the appellate court.

>> kane university took a major step forward with the merger with new jersey city university.

The merger was given final approval from the middle states commission on higher education, which accredits higher ed institutions in our region.

Now, that approval is one of the last steps before the deal is sealed.

The merger will officially happen July 1st, when NJCU will be absorbed into Kean and the Jersey City campus rebranded as Kean-Jersey City.

The combined university will serve about 24,000 students, making it one of the largest public college mergers in state history.

Higher ed leaders say the move expands access and programs, but it also comes after years of financial trouble at NJCU, which was put under a state monitor in 2023 and told by the state to find a partner there to stay afloat.

There are still some unknowns about the deal, like potential layoffs, although Kean officials say they're trying to limit those layoffs.

The merger still needs final approval from the U.S.

Department of Education.

That's what we've got for headlines.

Back to you, Bri.

Coming up, we talk with newly sworn in Congresswoman Annalilia Mejia about her first week on the Hill.

That's next.

Funding for NJ Spotlight News provided by the members of the New Jersey Education Association and RWJBarnabas Health.

Learn more at RWJBH.org.

Well, she's one of the newest members of Congress and already one of the most closely watched.

Democrat Annalilia Mejia was sworn into office just over a week ago after a decisive special election win in the 11th District, taking over Governor Mikey Sherrill's old seat.

Mejia is a progressive Democrat who led New Jersey's Working Families Party and a former top aide to Senator Bernie Sanders.

And she's wasted no time staking out bold positions, pushing a $25 federal minimum wage, backing Medicare for All, and calling to abolish ICE.

Now, with another election just weeks away, she faces early tests of both her politics and her leadership.

Congresswoman Mejia joins us now.

It's great to see you.

You've been in office for a whole nine days.

I'm wondering if your space on the Hill is maybe a little bigger and different than your office that you had with working families here in Newark, which was about the size of a broom closet.

Do they give freshmen a little bit more space than that?

I, well, I inherited Governor Mikey Sherrill's office.

And so I am benefiting from, from the seniority and the space that the governor was able to occupy.

That all changes if and when I return to, to Congress next year.

But as you said, I am hitting the ground running on behalf of New Jersey 11 families.

I know that we need to fight to get more money in people's pockets.

I know that we need to fight to stop the chaos of ice and replace it with a system that not only provides protection in our communities but that is fair and just and transparent.

And I do believe that health care is a human right and that it is unjust to think that people go ration their medicine or go without health care in a country as great as ours.

And so it is with pride that I am pushing issues that really keep people up at night.

I was thinking back about your time here in the state and even as director for Senator Sanders and you were critical of the political establishment of the government system as it were and maybe as it is.

How do you sort of reconcile that?

How do you plan to stay apart from that when you are a part of it now?

Well my biggest critique of both sides of the aisle is that big money has captured our political system, our electoral system, our policymaking system.

What I've been able to see over the 25 years of advocacy of organizing across the state of New Jersey is that power players who have big multi-billion dollar PACs are able to flood the zone, or multi-million dollar PACs, better yet.

They're able to, in many ways, shape the ideas that our elected officials end up engaging in.

They get to, in many ways, hold the pen on our policymaking.

And I think the biggest problem we as voters, as New Jerseyans, as Americans face is the outsized power of big money.

And so, even though I have been elected to office, I continue to push against this idea that big money and might makes right, that instead we should be focused on regular people.

So I'm still not taking money from corporate PACs.

I am still rejecting the idea of these big special interest groups essentially owning our elected officials.

And instead, I'm doing the work of talking to regular everyday New Jerseyans.

I'm knocking on doors.

I'm making phone calls.

And I'm trying to, you know, I'm trying to connect with people on this idea that you should be the primary focus of your elected representative, that your interests should be primary, not that of billionaires, and that your daily struggles should be what your elected officials focus on, which, again, I think I'm going to be able to continue to do for as long as the people of New Jersey's 11th congressional district allow me.

I think it's important.

Well, in your first piece of legislation, which we touched on, introducing this $25 federal minimum wage, which currently sits at $7.25, there, of course, is criticism that this would hurt suburban districts like yours that are full of small businesses, where those owners look at that number and say, "I can't afford that."

What's your response to them?

Well, I'll-- You know, in some ways, it's almost like Groundhog Day, because I remember the argument against raising the wage to $15.

I'll remind folks that what we're talking about is not an overnight shift, but a gradual increase that will allow our families to be able to make more.

The truth is, there is no corner in the United States in which making less than $25 an hour is tenable to families.

There is no way that most communities can actually thrive if their workers, if their families are making so little money.

And we have a responsibility to ensure that we're able to uplift families.

You know, inflation is real, and we can fight it in many ways, trying to lower costs.

You know, not allowing this president to throw tariffs around like Mardi Gras beads is one step.

Making sure that we fight against monopolies and industries is another step to lower costs.

But the truth is, putting more money in people's pockets matter.

And New Jersey is evidence that we are able to do it in a way that is both smart, that is gradual, that respects the needs of employers and workers, and it won't implode our economy.

I mean, New Jersey has led the way on raising the wage to $15, and our economy actually improved, was able to thrive, because more people were able to engage in the economy than being pushed out.

Would you support a lower number if that could pass?

I would support anything that makes families a little bit more economically stable.

I think that we need to vision, you know, into the future.

And again, this is a gradual increase that will allow us to be able to uplift families and keep our small businesses stable.

I would welcome anything that would make sure that your viewers, that our viewers are able to do a little bit better.

I mean, look, we're spending more on healthcare, 175% more on healthcare in one year.

We're spending more on housing, upwards of 5, 6% of an increase in housing costs.

We're spending more on energy costs, upwards of 6% of an increase in one year.

And so again, most people listening, they know that they need a little bit more money in their pocket.

And when we raise the floor, we raise everyone.

Let me ask you quickly about your position on ICE.

Now you sit on the Homeland Security Committee.

I wonder if your position on that has changed at all now that you're responsible for oversight and now that there is funding pressure, very real funding pressure on these agencies that you are overseeing.

Well, first, I'm so excited to be on Homeland Security, not only for immigration, but it is also the committee that deals with FEMA.

And as we know, in New Jersey's 11th congressional district, flooding and flooding mitigation is a serious issue.

And so it is with pride that I was able to join that committee.

Now, my position on ICE, it has been, has always been that we need to abolish and replace.

We need to have a system that- is going to be able to replace it with, Congresswoman.

Well, I would, first of all, you know, ICE in its current formation has only existed for the past 22 years.

This collapsing of this policing force and this border enforcement force that has been supersized by the Trump administration and then stripped of any responsibility, any transparency, any kind of accountability has resulted in the death of American citizens.

Let's not forget that mass agents are able to roam across our streets, tear people off of the streets, are able to turn their weapons against the American people, wreak chaos, and there's no accountability.

And so my proposal is that we instead invest in judges in the system, that we instead invest in ensuring that our system is able to understand who we want to bring into the fabric of our nation in a more quick and effective way.

You know, if we're able, if most viewers are able to fill out a credit card application and in seconds have an understanding of whether or not they're approved, then I think we could do better than waiting seven, ten, eleven years to determine someone who has entered the process, who is trying to integrate into the fabric of our nation.

Will you support, Congresswoman, a clean funding bill, even if it includes money for ICE as it currently stands?

I would support funding that would ensure that the American people are safe, that the American people have transparency, that the American people have accountability from their government, that we do not have to be fearful of having masked agents roaming our streets, kicking down doors, breaking car windows, stealing people off the streets, and not caring whether or not you're a citizen or not.

Everyone is put in danger when one group of us is denied equal protection and due process.

What I want to do is make sure that our government upholds the Constitution, works smartly and transparently and fairly, so that we all have fairness under our government.

I think the American people don't want chaos, death and destruction.

The people want to be able to feel safe in their communities and trust our institutions.

And that's the responsibility I've taken on.

Congresswoman Mejia, seven weeks until your next election.

We'll be talking to you.

Thanks so much for your time.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And thank you to all your viewers.

New data from the state's first ever universal literacy screenings is raising concerns about how well young students are learning to read.

The screenings, required for all K through third grade classrooms, show many kids are struggling with foundational skills like sounding out words and connecting letters to sounds.

Skills education leaders say are critical for long-term success.

The new findings show overall 43% of students are reading below grade level, prompting new urgency and investment in literacy support.

Our education and child welfare writer Catherine Carrera joins us now for more on what the numbers reveal.

Catherine, good to see you.

Great reporting.

What stood out to you in this first round of data?

Thanks, Brianna.

Yeah, I think the highlights that you just pointed out for sure, the experts that I've talked to say that those are the most troubling, the rates for phonemic awareness and phonics.

And those are the two essential skills that students need for reading fluency.

And so this screener that districts were required to do at the beginning of the year and they're going to be required to do at the end of the year, it really just shows us where students are right now when it comes to reading and sort of gives teachers some guidance on where to put their efforts with instruction.

What's driving or what's behind these struggling rates and why are kids having these literacy issues from what we can, I guess, glean from the data?

Yeah, well, I think so far it's important to remember that the screener data that we have right now is very early data from the beginning of this school year.

This is the first time that teachers are administering these screeners.

And we can't look at the data the same way that we might look at assessment data.

And so they're really just a window into what is going on with the student coming into the school year.

And it'll be more interesting to see how students do in these areas at the end of the school year once instruction and that focus has over the course of the school year has taken effect, hopefully with the students.

But it does show us that some of these elements from the science of reading curriculum, which is reading curriculum that's based on critical reading areas such as naming letters, phonics, phonemic awareness, as we already stated, but oral reading and what is the fifth one?

I think those are all five that I just mentioned.

Yeah, letter naming, oral reading, phonics, phonemic awareness.

You reported, Kat, that not all districts reported data as well, so I wonder how much of that plays into whether we're getting a full picture in addition to the fact that as you just said, this is the first time that these teachers are administering these screeners.

Yeah, so only about 76% of school districts submitted their approved screeners to the New Jersey Department of Education.

And so that does leave out about a quarter of school districts that either didn't submit anything at all or they submitted screeners that maybe aren't approved by the State Department of Education.

And so education leaders are saying that they're giving those districts some extra attention so that they get on board with the screeners and they're trying to help them with finding which screeners to use.

And so there's also a lot of public information on the literacy screeners and some guidance with that on the State Department of Education website.

There's a $50 million investment as you report that the state is making toward this.

How's that money going to be used?

Yeah, so it was a $50 million federal grant that they are dispersing over the course of five years.

And a lot of that money is going toward helping school districts with these efforts.

One area that the state is looking at is with literacy coaches, training teachers who are teaching literacy in the best practices.

And so literacy coaches, that seems to be a really important factor in this for its success.

Catherine Carrera for us.

Kat, thanks so much.

Great reporting.

Thank you.

It's unofficially midterm season here in New Jersey with candidates in some hotly contested congressional districts in full campaign mode as they gear up for the primaries on June 2nd.

District 7 is home to incumbent Congressman Tom Kaine Jr., who's been absent from Washington for weeks now.

One of the candidates vying to take his seat and flip the district back to blue is Dr.

Tina Shah, who's one of four Democrats in the race.

Shah is a critical care doctor who once served as senior advisor to the U.S.

Surgeon General, where she prioritized the mental and emotional well-being of medical staff across the country.

She's now asking voters in CD7 to give her a chance.

Dr.

Shah joins us now.

Thank you so much for being with us.

Thank you for having me, Joanna.

Can you tell us why you're running in this race and in this district?

I'm running because as a physician, I have just seen too many people be hurt by Trump's policies, and I'm tired of watching Tom Kane Jr.

and the other Republicans in Congress not do anything about it.

Joanne, I want to tell you, I recently took care of a woman, Mrs.

J., who came in because her insurance company denied her asthma inhalers, and she had to be put on a ventilator.

This is unacceptable in our country, and that's why I've actually dedicated my professional career to addressing our broken health care system.

I want to get into that a little bit because clearly you have a whole lot of experience here and health care costs continue to rise across the country.

They're choking out families.

Many have dropped off of the Affordable Care Act plans.

School systems even are getting choked by these rising costs year over year.

What actually can be done to address those rising costs even beyond subsidies.

Well, first, we do have to reverse what the Trump administration did.

We need to take back what happened in the big ugly bill.

And instead of giving tax breaks to billionaires and corporations, we need to make sure that we fund Medicaid and one in five New Jerseyans relies on Medicaid.

And we do need to restore the tax credits so that when a family decides to buy insurance on the marketplace, it's affordable.

Because right now, it's astronomical.

It's over $10,000 per family of four just to afford health insurance.

I know you champion some efforts.

You mentioned insurance companies.

You champion an effort to get insurance companies to stop denying care for essential needs and services.

You What does that look like here in New Jersey?

Could you scale that?

So New Jersey has now one of the strongest pieces of legislation to stop insurance companies from prior authorization tactics to delay care.

I was proud to organize a grassroots movement where we got a bill passed, and now if you are in a regulated policy by the state, you can't have your medical care denied.

Before this, people would wait up to 14 or 15 days to hear from an insurance company if that critical MRI was, you know, approved for their insane back pain, or if that medical test was approved.

And now it's either 24 hours if it's urgent, or 72 hours if it's not urgent.

But we need to take this playbook that we developed in New Jersey all the way up to D.C.

because people are really hurting right now.

There's a whole lot more happening beyond health care, although that's a huge and critical piece.

But you are the daughter of immigrants.

I want to ask your thoughts about ICE activity here across our country.

Do you believe that there is a role for ICE to play in ensuring that only those who are here legally remain here in this country?

ICE plays a critical role in protecting our borders and we really do need ICE to make sure that we abide and that they follow law and order.

But what's happened under the Trump administration is that we now have masked men on the street picking up people that look like me and many other people in our community here in New Jersey's 7th District and that's unacceptable.

They're going into our schools, they're going into our hospitals.

These are sacred places and they don't have the right to do so.

If you were elected to Congress, how would you handle the case that's happening in Roxbury right now?

Of course, under the new DHS Secretary Mark Wayne Mullen, we know that he's reviewing the purchase of this warehouse in Roxbury that's meant to house at least 1,500 detainees.

How would you handle that if you were the representative?

Well, Joanna, this is really interesting.

In Roxbury, the Republican Town Council and Mayor and the Democrats all agree that we don't want that detention center.

And they sought Tom Kane Jr., the sitting member of Congress, his help, and he was unavailable and did not help.

So, as a member of Congress, I'm going to be listening to my constituents and fighting for them, unlike the current member, Tom Kane Jr.

We know that redistricting made this a very uphill climb, I'll say, for any Democrat looking to unseat the incumbent congressman.

20,000 votes now are, I should say, there are 20,000 more Republican voters in the district than there are Democratic voters.

And yet, no one's seen or heard from the congressman in weeks.

Do you think that you have a chance to actually take over and turn this district blue?

Of course, if you win the primary.

Well, I love this question, Joanna.

And let me just first say, as a physician, I wish all the best to, you know, Congressman Tom Kaine Jr.

as he's dealing with his medical issues.

And as far as flipping this seat and winning this race so that I can best represent New Jersey's 7th, I wholeheartedly have the strongest path to win.

I'm actually the only candidate who has worked for both a Republican president and a Democrat president.

This is a district that wants to see things getting done, and I have a track record of doing that.

Just very quickly, we are in conflict with Iran.

How would you handle that?

Do you believe that we should continue to support Israel, both financially and with weapons?

I know that's a loaded question with a short amount of time left.

Well, Trump went against the Constitution and decided to start a war with Iran.

As a member of Congress, I'll hold him in check.

And second, I wholeheartedly believe in supporting Israel and I believe in unconditional support when it comes to U.S.

providing aid.

We need to make sure that we address the problems that are happening and the challenges to ensure Israel's security.

And at the same time, my heart really breaks for the humanitarian crisis happening in Gaza.

Everyone deserves basic medical care.

Everyone deserves access to food.

And what we're watching now is no access to medical care and famine.

The global community really needs to step up here.

- All right, Dr.

Tina Shah, Democratic primary candidate in Congressional District 7.

Of course, the primary election is on June 2nd.

Thank you so much for being with us today.

- Thank you so much for having me, Joanna.

- And that's going to do it for us tonight.

- I'm Brianna Vannozzi.

For the entire NJ Spotlight News team, thanks for being with us.

We'll see you right back here tomorrow.

- NJM Insurance Group, serving the insurance needs of residents and businesses for more than 100 years.

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