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From NJ PBS Studios, this is NJ Spotlight News with Briana Vannozzi.

Hello, and thanks for joining us.

We're bringing you a special NJ Spotlight News edition of Reporters Roundtable with Joanna Gagis, who has a roundup of the top political stories of the week with the help of a panel of local journalists.

First, though, a few of our top headlines.

More allegations of systemic racism in Clark.

A shocking new lawsuit from Attorney General Matt Plotkin accuses former Mayor Sal Bonacorso and Clark's police leadership of directing officers to keep black people out of town through discriminatory policing.

The civil rights complaint filed in state superior court alleges officers were instructed to target black and Hispanic drivers using traffic stops and searches as a tool to harass and intimidate them.

Prosecutors say officers were told to focus enforcement near the Garden State Parkway and neighboring towns with larger minority populations by relying on minor equipment violations and by falsely claiming smelling marijuana to justify searching their vehicles.

According to the lawsuit, black drivers were nearly four times more likely to be searched than white drivers between 2015 and 2020.

Hispanic drivers, they were more than twice as likely.

The former mayor, though, denies the allegations, while Clark's current mayor, Angel Albanese, calls the lawsuit politically motivated and notes the department has undergone reforms during years of county oversight due to similar allegations.

The lawsuit is calling for monitoring and court orders to prevent future discrimination.

During his last official announcement in office, Governor Murphy propelled his plans for making New Jersey an AI and innovation hub, signing a Memorandum of Understanding with tech giant NVIDIA focused on advancing generative artificial intelligence.

The agreement unites the state's public sector with flagship universities like Rutgers and NJIT and NVIDIA to shape the future of AI.

It's one of Murphy's administration's highest priorities has been reviving the state's reputation as the global home here of innovation.

Now, this initiative follows other recent efforts in the state, like establishing a permanent New Jersey innovation authority to oversee digital and AI projects.

And it dedicates $25 million through the Economic Development Authority to build supercomputers at those universities.

Governor Murphy argues it'll give students, researchers, and entrepreneurs state-of-the-art resources to explore AI.

That's something incoming Governor Mikie Sherrill supports and plans to continue through her administration.

It will create a statewide framework for bringing together our government, research universities, our community colleges, the New Jersey AI Hub, and of course, NVIDIA.

And together, we're going to advance AI education, workforce development, research, and innovation at scale.

So we can prepare New Jersey students, innovators, and workers to shape the future of AI and not get run over by it.

And a warning for commuters to brace for major disruptions on the rails heading into New York.

Starting February 15th, New Jersey Transit and Amtrak will slash train service by more than 50 percent for four weeks.

Now, that's to connect the long-awaited new Portal North Bridge to the Northeast Corridor.

The disruptions will affect more than 600 daily trains in that choke point between Newark and Secaucus that funnels commuters into Penn Station.

But officials say the suspensions are unavoidable.

Crews will be working around the clock to shift one track of the 115-year-old Portal Swing Bridge onto the new fixed-span bridge that won't open for boat traffic.

Now that old bridge was infamous for getting stuck and was one of the biggest sources of delays on the entire Northeast Corridor.

Transit leaders say it's short-term pain for long-term reliability, but they're also urging commuters to plan ahead, check revised schedules, and expect another round of disruptions, yes, next year when the second track is connected.

And those are our top headlines.

Reporters Roundtable with Joanna Gagis begins right now.

Major funding for Reporters Roundtable is provided by RWJBarnabas Health.

Let's be healthy together.

We are T-minus four days until we have a new governor.

Hi, everyone.

I'm Joanna Gagis, and this is Reporters Roundtable, the show where we round up a panel of journalists to talk all about the latest week of New Jersey news.

Let's see who we've got on our panel today.

Drumroll, please.

We have Colleen O'Dea, senior writer and projects editor for us here at NJ Spotlight News.

Jelani Gibson, statehouse reporter for NJ Advanced Media, and Charlie Stile, political columnist with The Record and the USA Today network.

So, four days until Governor-elect Mikie Sherrill takes the reins.

That leaves 96 hours for Governor Murphy to get done all that he hopes to before the clock runs out.

Let's start with the big one.

The legislature passed a package of bills that would grant immigrant protections from federal action.

One of them is essentially the Immigrant Trust Directive.

Charlie, I'm going to start with you.

Has Governor Murphy indicated any more clearly in this last 24 hours whether or not he's going to sign these bills?

Not that I've seen, but maybe you could ask the other.

I have not seen that.

And that's kind of typical for Murphy, who I think he's been a little selective on this policy in general, but for the most part, he doesn't tip his hat on a bill publicly until it's actually on his desk and he's going to make a decision.

But I think he's just holding this one real close.

I think he's really staying away from -- I really get the impression from Murphy -- and I got this from -- I guess we'll talk about this a little later -- about his speech.

I think he is trying to keep the things toned down for some reason here at the end, not to say anything too inflammatory or incendiary.

He's not going out with burning any bridges or a blaze of glory, which is kind of interesting.

Yeah, not making too many waves.

I think that's kind of consistent with his style.

Colleen, we've heard Mikie Sherrill, Gov.-elect Sherrill, say many times she does not want the Immigrant Trust Directive codified into law.

She preferred it as an executive order because she thinks that that'll pass muster in the courts.

If Gov.

Murphy does sign this, does that open up her administration right from go to perhaps costly, cumbersome legal battles federally?

I think so.

What we understand is that the directive has already passed some muster legally or judicially.

But once there is a law, if that bill is signed into law, then certainly I think it would give the Trump administration and those folks who have been so gung-ho about rounding up immigrants and trying to use every method that they can, it would give them certainly another reason to go back into the courts.

And I think that what Mikie Sherrill has said and perhaps what Governor Murphy has said, too, is that it's a question if it does go back into the courts, what happens.

And they don't want to jeopardize that.

On the other hand, you've got, you know, immigrant right groups and people like the ACLU and just all sorts of organizations who are pushing for this to be put into law so that they can be sure that it will, you know, stand through the Sherrill administration.

We don't know what's going to happen.

- Looking at the politics of it, right, like you said, immigrants' rights groups have been pushing for this for a long time.

Charlie said, you know, the governor's not going out making any big waves.

This could be a big win for him, given the fact that he was a progressive governor and did a lot that progressive groups had asked him for.

But Colleen, staying with this and the Sherrill approach here, do you envision that there are conversations happening behind the scenes right now between the two administrations?

Do you think that she could have any influence in asking the governor not to sign this, although he still has control?

Oh, most certainly.

There's no question.

You know, this is a different transition from the ones that we've been used to in the state because it's the first time in a half century that we've had a Democrat to Democrat transition.

So certainly these are two administrations, two groups of people who are friendly to one another.

I mean, there's no question that there's, they're talking behind the scenes, you know, and perhaps if Sherrill says, you know, promises, vows to continue the immigrant trust directive as is under her administration, maybe Murphy would feel comfortable enough to say, okay, I don't have to sign this because we're going to continue to have a policy that we've had.

But I mean, I think all along on the campaign trail, there were just questions about whether Mikie Sherrill would continue the directive exactly as it is.

And I'm not sure we ever got a straight answer on that.

Yeah, no, there was never a really clear, straight answer.

Jelani, obviously, here in New Jersey, we're looking at this transfer of power that's about to happen.

But I think the conversation nationally really is on the ICE enforcement that we've seen really increase, really ramp up, especially in Minneapolis.

But you've covered what's been going on here because we've seen increased ICE action here in New Jersey even in the last week.

What are you seeing?

Well, first and foremost, it's important to understand that while the governor had concerns, while Governor Sherrill had concerns, her concerns were specifically also about the previous bill, the Immigrant Trust Act, being too wide and too expansive, right?

And so what the legislators decided to do was they decided to break up a lot of the things in the Immigrant Trust Act into separate pieces of legislation.

And they said, hey, we're going to codify the directive that's already been held up in court.

What we're seeing across New Jersey is the type of enforcement that's already going to be subject to a lot of litigation here.

And what you're really dealing with is the assertion of the supremacy clause, which talks about federal laws over state laws.

And what you're also talking about here on the Immigrant Trust Directive side is the Tenth Amendment and what's known as the anti-commandeering doctrine, which says that, you know, federal, you can't force legislators and state law enforcement to enforce federal laws.

And that is actually not a construct of liberals.

That was actually a construct of conservatives who wanted to challenge federal gun laws and how federal gun law enforcement was happening in a lot of conservative states.

And so what I oftentimes have to remind people of is immigration is oftentimes not the first sanctuary state or sanctuary city.

In many ways, conservatives that wanted to fight back against the enforcement of federal gun laws is the first sanctuary state or the first sanctuary city.

What you're talking about here is civil enforcement.

And when people ask the question of why the Trump administration doesn't do more criminal enforcement as opposed to civil enforcement, it's because in civil court you don't have the right to a lawyer.

And since a lot of people know that the undocumented people can't afford a lawyer, you can actually deport a lot of undocumented people more quickly in a civil court than you could a criminal court in which a lot of them would have to be given an attorney.

You leave a lot of interesting points right there, Jelani.

But a lot there, from the way that the lawmakers kind of adjusted the bill to the way that the federal government has oversight and, of course, this kind of duality of who has control in these enforcement actions.

But we did see ICE in several of New Jersey's cities, even up until yesterday.

And by all accounts, we could expect more today and through next week.

How are communities responding?

You've seen a lot of protests, and you've seen many protest scenes that are similar to what you're seeing across the country and to what you're seeing in Minneapolis.

And so when you look at these protests, it's not just simply about the protests; it's also about the response to the protests.

But even when you look at the reporting in national media, there has been private GOP polling that has shown that support for the Trump administration's immigration approach is also falling.

And so there's going to have to be a navigation around something that is causing a lot more protests, especially as people head into the midterms.

All right.

Charlie, what do you have to add in terms of what you're seeing out there in terms of ICE enforcement?

Well, we're seeing it even in small suburban towns like Princeton.

There was a roundup here yesterday, and that's Thursday.

And it really just is an indication of the immense pressure that is on ICE and Border Patrol to round up as many immigrants as they can to meet their quotas.

And it's really, it's, you know, this is no longer an abstraction for suburban New Jersey, New Jersey in general.

This is right on our doorstep.

And I'm not sure we really have a collective response.

And I don't think anybody does.

It's just a shock and awe.

Yeah, it sure is.

We're going to switch gears.

So, Colleen, I want to ask you, we saw here in New Jersey, Democrats are now in a super majority in Trenton.

Talk to us about the numbers.

How many seats did they pick up?

How many new Democrats came into the legislature this week?

So it was only the Assembly that was up for election last year, other than one Senate seat that was unexpired.

The Democrats picked up 12 new members.

They picked up five seats.

They have 12 new members.

All of the new members in the legislature are Democrats.

The supermajority is 57 now Democrats to 23 Republicans.

That essentially means that were there to be a veto that they didn't like from Governor Sherrill, which is hard to imagine because she's also a Democrat, they could override it.

So it's, I mean, it's just, the Democrats have been in control for more than two decades in Trenton, and this has just ramped it up to the next level.

Yeah, I mean, you say it's hard to imagine, but we did see that political infighting between Democrats at the start of Governor Murphy's term, so it's not beyond reasonable, you know, that we could see some conflict there.

I'm curious, are there any particular new members who you're watching as maybe coming in and shaking things up in Trenton?

Yeah, so we had four who were not endorsed by their county party for the primary.

So those are pretty much the ones that I think to watch.

It's a Katie Brennan, Robbie Bala.

Those are in Hudson County.

In Passaic County, you've got Kenyatta Stewart.

And in Union County, you've got Ed Rodriguez.

So I mean, I think if anybody is gonna shake things up, it's probably gonna be those four, although who knows, you know, there can be alliances made.

Things could certainly shift.

And those four could also just fall in line and vote the way that they're asked to vote.

But certainly with 57 Democrats, there are an awful lot of people that could be allowed by the leadership to not vote on a certain bill if they didn't feel comfortable with it.

Yeah, for sure.

And obviously, as we've said already, switching from one Democratic administration to another, Republicans are probably feeling pretty lost in the sauce here.

I did have a chance earlier this week to sit down with, well, to talk with on the Assembly floor, Senate Minority Whip Mike Testa after the State of the State.

I asked him how he thought he might be able to or where they might be able to find common ground with the Sherrill administration.

Here's what he had to say.

Governor Murphy addressed the issue of a surplus.

We don't have a surplus.

We actually have a $4 billion structural deficit right now.

We need to do everything we possibly can to make sure that we eradicate that $4 billion structural deficit.

I think that we also need to work on some common ground with the corporate business tax.

At the highest level, it's 11.5 percent.

That is simply unacceptable.

And this isn't a Republican thing or a Democrat thing.

You can look at Governor Shapiro of the state of Pennsylvania.

They are working very hard over multiple years to reduce their corporate business tax to 5 percent, so less than half of what is now costing New Jersey businesses simply to do business in the state of New Jersey.

Charlie, let me throw this to you.

Do you think -- I mean, Republicans are calling for more affordability.

It's what Sherrill ran and won on.

Do you think that there's any kind of common language here between Republicans and Democrats at the start of this term?

I -- there's always -- I think so.

I think that -- I would hope so, that there is some sort of middle ground.

But to Colleen's point, though, we have an expanded Democratic majority.

Four of them are from a new assertive progressive wing.

And I would even say it's the new progressive, quote-unquote, "caucus" is up to seven.

If you look at three or others who came in with sort of an arm's length distance to their local county parties, I think there's going to be a, I think the tough spot is going to be for the assembly speaker more so than the Senate president.

I think there's going to be a pull to the left and which will make common ground on some issues harder.

So we'll see.

Yeah.

Jelani, this legislature is looking at a nice salary bump.

They just got a raise, granted for the first time in a long time.

But it's catching the attention of the public who says, hey, we're struggling over here.

Just talk us through what that salary increase looked like.

Yeah, well, I mean, a lot of legislators were only getting paid in the 40s.

And now it's basically went up to about nearly twice that.

That's usually the most controversial increase.

The governor and the cabinet officials, they got increases.

The judges got increases.

But the most controversial part was the legislative getting an increase.

And specifically, the most controversial part is we have a part-time legislature, right?

And so, should you, I guess the debate is, should you have someone that's pulling, you know, basically what is the equivalent of a full-time salary on what is being classified as a part-time job when we already know many of those legislators have other jobs?

The other end of that argument is if the job of being a legislator only pays in the 40, then it basically all but guarantees that the people who have those very well-paying jobs are the only ones that can run, which is something that, you know, the late senator and former governor, Cody, often talked about.

- Yeah, he pushed really hard for that increase.

Charlie, you wrote a beautiful moving piece about him and the man behind all the titles.

He had a lot going on personally at the time that he became governor when Jim McGreevey resigned suddenly.

Just add some color to that.

Yeah, his wife had some health problems.

He had recently lost both parents in the previous 18 months.

And I think he was exhausted from that.

And the last thing he wanted to do was, well, he makes it sound like, yeah, always with Dick Cody, there's, you know, there's always, it's much more of a multifaceted story.

But yeah, he was, his story was, I'm, you know, to be suddenly thrown into this fire is not something I was prepared to do or looking forward to do.

But in a lot of ways, he was prepared.

He had been looking at this role and coveting it for a long career.

And he seemed to be, for all his complaints, he was ready for it.

He had, you know, he seemed to be stylistically and temperamentally the right man for the right moment.

And he passed, he got a lot done in that time, too.

He absolutely did.

I mean, first a state comptroller, he negotiated a new deal for the stadium to keep the Giants and Jets here.

I'm going to be talking about the House of Representatives, and I'm going to be talking about the House of Representatives, and I'm going to be talking about the House of Representatives, and I'm going to be talking about the House of Representatives, and I'm going to be talking about the House of Representatives, and I'm going to be talking about the House of Representatives, and I'm going to be talking about the House of Representatives, and I'm going to be talking about the House of Representatives, and I'm going to be talking about the House of Representatives, and I'm going to be talking about the House of Representatives, and I'm going to be talking about the House of Representatives, and I'm going to be talking about the House of Representatives, and I'm going to be talking about the House of Representatives, and I'm going to be talking about the House of Representatives, and I'm going to be talking about the House of Representatives, so you've got former Congressman Tom Malinowski, you've got Brendan Gill, Essex County Commissioner, who's got a lot of the party, certainly the Essex County machine behind him.

You've got Annalilia Mejia, who is, I think, the Progressive's choice.

She's got the backing of AOC, Bernie Sanders.

And you've got Tahisha Way, the current lieutenant governor, who did not get Murphy's endorsement, but he did say that she wasn't in the race at the time he endorsed Gill.

So I think those are kind of the four leaders, and we'll see where it goes from there.

But with 11 people now actively on the ballot, actively campaigning, you could easily win that race with less than 10 percent of the vote.

You sure can.

We will see where it goes from there.

We'll be following.

I'm sorry we're out of time.

That's all we've got for this week's Reporters Roundtable.

Thank you to our panel.

You can follow me as always @JoannaGagisNJ on Instagram and then go ahead and scan that QR code on your screen to see more episodes of Roundtable.

For all of the crew here at Gateway Center in downtown Newark, I'm Joanna Gagis.

Thanks for being with us and have a great weekend.

Major funding for Reporters Roundtable is provided by RWJBarnabas Health.

Let's be healthy together.

That's going to do it for us.

But before we leave you, we'll have live coverage of Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill's inauguration starting at 10.30 a.m.

on Tuesday, January 20th, here in Newark at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, NJPAC, with a team on the ground there as well as in the studio here with me for analysis and historical insight as the state's 57th governor is sworn in.

I'm Briana Vannozzi.

For the entire team at NJ Spotlight News, thank you for being with us.

We'll see you right back here on Monday.

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