♪♪ >> From NJPBS Studios, this is "NJ Spotlight News" with Brianna Vannozzi.

>> Hello, and thanks for joining us tonight.

I'm Joanna Gagas.

Brianna Vannozzi is off.

Coming up, we hear one lawmaker's plan to help the icons of New Jersey, our diners, survive and thrive.

Plus, we look at the history of Juneteenth that officially freed enslaved people here in America and the continued calls for change here in the state.

But first, dark money continues to be a factor in New Jersey's elections, including this month's primary races.

We'll break it all down.

That's next.

Major funding for NJ Spotlight News is provided in part by NJM Insurance Group, serving the insurance needs of residents and businesses for more than 100 years.

The congressional primary races are over and the focus has shifted to the midterm elections, but one thing is clear.

Dark money continues to impact election results here in New Jersey.

It often comes in the form of PACs and Super PACs.

The question is, who's contributing financially to these efforts and what transparency exists to understand how dark money is swaying voters as they head out to the polls?

I recently spoke with our senior writer and projects editor, Colleen O'Day, who followed the money in several key primary congressional races.

Colleen, great to see you.

I love the story that you wrote about dark money in politics.

It's something that we as journalists who follow politics and elections talk a lot about, but can you just explain what that term dark money means for the lay person?

Yeah, it's when an independent group, you know, not not the candidates campaign, spending spends money and we can't trace who's given the money.

We can't see who the contributors are.

Normally it means what's known as a 501c4 group, which is a political nonprofit group that doesn't have to by law provide its contributors information.

In this case, what we've seen in the primary was that we also have at least one group known as a real change pack that organized right after the deadline.

So we have not yet been able to see who their donors are.

So they are in effect also a dark money group at this point.

Yeah.

When we talk about packs or political action committees, these are those 501 C fours that you're talking about.

Yeah, they could be 501 C fours.

They could also be just super packs.

Again, they're they're groups that are not controlled by the candidate.

They're controlled by others.

And the problems come when we can't know who those others are, and who's providing the money to them, because then you really don't know what their motivations are.

We're going to get into how dark money has impacted recent elections here in New Jersey.

But this all stems from a 2010 U.S.

Supreme Court case that we refer to as Citizens United that really shaped and changed how money can be used in politics.

Can you explain what that ruling decided?

I mean, it was essentially saying that money is speech.

And because free speech is part of the Constitution, you can't stop someone from speaking with money.

And it involved mostly these groups.

Corporations can provide money.

These super PACs, independent groups can all spend money on political campaigns.

But you know one of the things that Congress still could do, because right unless you pass a constitutional amendment, that Citizens United ruling stands, but Congress could come in and pass some additional transparency rules so that not not trying to stop the spending of the money but but forcing more disclosure of who's behind it.

Well what disclosure is required right now?

You said we don't know yet how much money they spent.

What does that process look like?

So the the Federal Election Commission has a whole calendar of when different groups have to spend money, have to provide reports on how they raise and spend money.

For the campaigns it's very clear a candidate you know files their paperwork, there are reports due right before elections, there are quarterly reports due.

For these other groups, for the super PACs that are involved, they also have to do spending reports either monthly or quarterly, depending on how they organize as a PAC.

The issue here, at least with this one group that we're talking about, is that they didn't file their paperwork until right after the last deadline.

So that means that what they had to report were only a document saying here's how here's who we are and then documents saying we've spent X amount of money in the last 24 or 48 hours on this election but they haven't had to file any reports yet that say just who is bankrolling them and they won't have to do that until June 20th, which is the next deadline for reporting.

Help us understand this, Colleen.

So much of what happens in an election is guided by state law, right?

States get to determine how their elections happen.

This, of course, is a Supreme Court ruling that impacted everyone in the country.

Would it be up to the state of New Jersey to change that transparency?

You say it takes an act of Congress.

So where's that dividing line between federal and state oversight?

So unfortunately, New Jersey can't act in this case because these are federal elections.

New Jersey has no say over the spending of money, the reporting of that in federal elections for Congress, the House, the Senate, and the presidency.

What it does have control over are state elections, the governor's office, state legislature, and then county and local races.

So in this case, it really would take an act of Congress to make some change.

Okay, let's get into how dark money has influenced recent elections.

We just came off the primaries earlier in June.

We saw some spending in Congressional District 7 that was significant.

What happened there?

Right, so that's where now it's up to 661,000.

Last time I checked, this group called Real Change PAC was spending money.

They bought some ads and they did direct mailers as well as text, texting direct to voters, essentially trying to portray Rebecca Bennett, who won the Democratic nomination, portray her as kind of a MAGA person, as a pro-Trump, or the last ad that they, the last mailer that they sent out had her, it appeared to be AI generated in one of those red Make America Great hats.

So saying that she's just not enough of a Democrat to, you know, to be the winner.

Now she overcame that.

She had raised the most money from her campaign, and she got money from a group called Vote Vets.

She's a veteran herself, and that group was working on her behalf.

And Vote Vets is a group that has disclosed its donors, so it's a different kind of group.

But you know, on election night she just said, "Hey, Republicans just threw $650,000 up in smoke trying to derail my campaign."

The belief is that this group is probably, you know, a front for Republicans who didn't want to see her up against Tom Kane Jr., the representative, because they thought she would have the best chance of defeating him.

And the only thing we know about it right now is... Oh, I'm sorry.

No, that's okay.

I was gonna say over in the special election in District 11, we saw there again, we saw a lot of spending that impacted that primary race between Tom Malinowski and Annalilia Mejia.

Explain that for us.

Right.

So that was in the special primary back in February.

There was even more money spent in that race.

$2.3 million was spent by a group that is essentially the super PAC of the AI PAC, the pro-Israel organization that's been really influential in elections.

And they didn't want to see Malinowski elected because of his stance.

He's got a pro-Israel stance except that he had said he would put some conditions on sending military aid to Israel based on what's been happening down in Gaza.

And so AIPAC worked against him.

They were effective there.

Their their spending was huge, was considered one of the reasons why Malinowski lost.

But what happened is that the winner, Anna Lilia Mejia, is actually further to the left on Israel than Malinowski was, and she would like to see even greater constraints on money given to Israel.

So not ultimately a win for them there.

Just very quickly, a couple seconds.

Is there any indication that this is something that Congress might want to take up or might want to put an end to?

Not at all, unfortunately.

It's just something that it seems like it's very much a Democratic cause, which it shouldn't be because Republicans have dark money spent against them as well.

But right now in the Congress that we have, I just don't see anything happening, at least this year.

All right.

Colleen O'Day, Senior Writer and Projects Editor for us.

Thank you.

Thanks so much, Joanna.

This Friday marks five years since Juneteenth became recognized as a federal holiday, the day when all enslaved people were finally free.

Celebrations are planned all around the country and here in New Jersey.

And while we also plan to celebrate America's 250th birthday this July 4th, for many Americans, Juneteenth is the true celebration of liberty and freedom for all.

For more on the meaning of this holiday, how it's being recognized here in New Jersey, and the continued calls for reparations, I'm joined by Jean-Pierre Brutus, Senior Counsel for the Economic Justice Program at the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice.

Jean-Pierre, it's so great to have you with us.

Can you just explain for us the history and the significance of Juneteenth, which we know, of course, is a reference to June 19, 1865?

Yes, sure.

So for your viewers, June 19, 1865 is important because when Union soldiers came to Galveston, Texas and announced through different documents that slavery had ended throughout the United States after the end of the Civil War, enslaved people in Texas began to celebrate.

And this is part of the series of celebrations throughout the South and throughout the United States as a series of jubilees celebrating the end of slavery in the United States.

And June 19, 1865 was when the news came to enslave people in Texas.

And this holiday, Juneteenth, a combination of June and the 19th, was celebrated throughout the United States, throughout the South, and became a federal holiday recently.

And this date is important.

So you, well you raise an important point because you say that's when the news came to enslave people in Texas because we know the Emancipation Proclamation took effect on January 1st of 1863.

So why did it take so long, years, for that news to reach these folks in Texas?

So although Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in January 1863, they had no-the Emancipation Proclamation did not have an enforcing mechanism.

It was for enslaved people in the South, which the Union had no control or power over.

It was only through the Civil War and through the fighting that happened and through the war in which the Union won, that then the Emancipation Proclamation was able to be enforced.

And one of the things I want to point out for your viewers is that enslaved people prior to not only the issue of the Emancipation Proclamation, but also to June 19th, 1865, they left the plantations that they were on in the South.

They joined the Union Army.

They joined as soldiers, as cooks, as spies, and they were agents in their own independence, in their own freedom, and they put the abolition of freedom on Lincoln's agenda.

It was enslaved people who had their own vision of freedom and who were agents of history and who made their freedom a reality.

Yeah, it's a point that's so often overlooked when we consider the Civil War and who actually was involved in the fighting.

Advocates today have continued to call for reparations for the descendants of enslaved people.

Can you just help us to understand what they're calling for when they call for reparations?

Sure.

One item I also want to point out with Juneteenth is that sort of gap between the announcement of the Emancipation Proclamation and the news getting to folks in Galveston, Texas in 1865.

And that kind of delay, that delay between the explanation and the announcement of freedom and actual freedom is very much a kind of symbol or metaphor for Black freedom here in the United States.

That delay between the law stating that Black people are free and actual realized freedom.

And what is needed to realize the actual freedom for Black people to flourish, for Black people to be free is reparations.

And it's only through reparations as a process, comprehensive reparations, can we see Black people flourish, Black people thrive here in New Jersey and throughout the United States.

And what we mean by repair is repairing all the harms of slavery, the harms of Jim Crow and segregation, and the ongoing harms that continue to persist that reproduce inequalities that came before the generational inequalities, including one of the largest racial wealth gaps in the country right here in New Jersey, as close as over $600,000 between white households and black households in New Jersey, but also all the other forms of racial inequities that manifest in incarceration rates, maternal mortality rates, infant mortality rates, exposure to environmental toxins, and the list goes on.

And what reparations is meant to do is to repair those harms, to create a new New Jersey.

We are living in a world made by slavery.

And we want to live in a world made by reparations, a New Jersey made by reparations.

Some of the things that you listed, we might call, you know, fall under the umbrella of environmental justice or Black maternal health or, you know, redlining, the end of redlining as a practice when it comes to loaning mortgages, for example.

These are all issues that have been taken up in one form or another here in New Jersey, nationally as well.

But folks have also called for a specific dollar amount to be paid or investments to be made into communities that have been most impacted, Black communities most impacted by slavery and by social justice practices.

Lack of social justice practices.

I want to ask, do you believe that there is, beyond the legislation that you're calling for, that there is a payout, something that the federal government should pay to descendants of enslaved people?

So in our report, For Such a Time as This, the Nowness of Reparations for Black People in New Jersey, we have close to 100 recommendations, including structural transformation.

And as part of that, we do call for payment for the harms of slavery in New Jersey.

We call for payments for the period of Jim Crow and segregation in New Jersey.

We also call for payments for ongoing harms that persisted after the ending of formal segregation in Jim Crow New Jersey and then we also call for payments for closing the racial wealth gap in New Jersey.

As I stated before, it's one of the largest, if not the largest, in the nation and so those payments are designed to be part of a comprehensive package for all black people in New Jersey to address the harms of slavery.

We call for comprehensive reparations including payments.

Just quickly you have a Juneteenth celebration happening this week can you tell us about it?

Sure so one of the things that's important about this work around repair and reparations is to increase the public awareness and knowledge of the need for repair in New Jersey.

We can draw a straight line between the harms that you've mentioned and I've identified between maternal mortality and infant mortality back to slavery in New Jersey.

New Jersey has been called the slave state of the north.

And what we found is that 56% of people in New Jersey simply don't even know that slavery happened.

And so for our Juneteenth symposium, yes, we'll be celebrating freedom, but we'll also have a panel discussion talking about the work of the New Jersey Reparations Council, as well as the work going forward that we're doing here in New Jersey around repair.

We'll also have a keynote from Professor Dorothy Brown about her recent book on reparations, Getting to Reparations.

And we'll have interactive workshops in the afternoon for attendees to engage and to think and to imagine about what a new New Jersey would look like.

And we'll also have breakfast and lunch and even dessert for our attendees.

And to close out the day, we'll have a performance from Newark Mayor Roz Baraka as well.

All right, there you go.

And that will be on Juneteenth, which is this June 19th, Friday.

Jean-Pierre Brutus, Senior Counsel of Economic Justice Program at the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice.

Thank you so much for your perspective today.

-Thank you so much for having me on behalf of the Institute.

I appreciate it.

-When you think of Jersey, you probably think of diners.

The two have become synonymous over the years.

In fact, with more than 500 diners here in the state, New Jersey is considered the diner capital of the world.

While many are struggling to stay afloat right now with rising inflation and supply chain issues, one legislator is trying to do something to save them.

Democratic Senator Paul Moriarty, who represents the fourth legislative district covering parts of Atlantic, Camden, and Gloucester counties, joins us now as part of our Under the Dome series.

Senator, great to have you on the show.

I've got to say, if you grew up in Jersey or if you've even lived here for any significant amount of time, you probably have a favorite diner, right?

I'm going to ask you, do you have a favorite?

And if so, what is it?

Oh, I have lots of favorite diners.

There's one about a hundred yards to my left here called the Whitman Diner that I go to all the time.

Ponzios and Cherry Hill and lots of diners throughout this region and you know look the diners are part of the DNA of the culture of New Jersey and we need to make sure that they're around for generations to come and that's why I've introduced this legislation which I hope we can pass this year.

Yeah let's just kind of explain it what is happening for so many diners which we should say are often mom-and-pop shops some been in the state for for decades my favorite I have to say is the tic-tac diner on Route 3 in Clifton or the Pilgrim Diner on Route 23 in Cedar Grove both have been around a really long time what is it that diners are struggling with?

well you know first of all they struggled with COVID and that shut many of them down and then when they came back many of them had to reduce their hours you know the customers didn't flock back so so that was really tough as you said many of these are mom-and-pop type diners there's your favorite diner the tick tock so their mom-and-pop experiences they have menus that are like phone books if people can remember that reference big thick menus with so many different offerings you can get breakfast all day or night so there's a lot of food that they have to carry to be able to prepare all of these incredible wonderful meals that they do at any time of day or night so they have a large overhead you know they have increased competition every day from fast-food restaurants and chain restaurants and coffee shops and and bagel shops and all the rest so they have a they have a big usually have a big footprint of you know they have high taxes they have a lot of things and you know we help large pharmaceutical companies the film industry you know big ticket items we help them with tax credits we help lure them to our state and keep them in our state because they provide jobs and they're important parts of our economy but we have to save some space to help out small businesses and certainly diners are part of the DNA of our culture as I said and they're really important.

Everybody has a diner story whether it's you know after going out for a night on Friday or Saturday night and having breakfast at you know one in the morning at a diner or after church with the whole family on a Sunday.

You know these are experiences that I want to continue for generations to come and I think... Let me ask you this, Senator.

You introduced what you called, I love the name, the Soda Pop Bill.

Stands for saving our diners and preserving our past.

You talk about these big tax breaks for massive corporations.

What would the tax support look like in this bill?

How would you actually give them a little bit more support?

Well, this bill does three things.

First of all, it provides up to a $25,000 a year tax credit based on how much you spend on food items.

So most diners would be able to meet that threshold and get a $25,000 tax credit off the top of their taxes.

It also helps customers and helps lure customers to diners because it would say that you don't have to pay sales tax on your check when you check out.

So you wouldn't be taxed at all on the food that you buy.

So that helps to lure people and give them a break.

And then thirdly, it creates a historic diner registry in the state of New Jersey.

And that would be on our, you know, state website.

And I think that it would help promote going more people going there because it would create this historical trail of restaurants and diners throughout the state.

Yeah, and I know for that they have to be in business, I believe 25 years or more.

Senator betting and sports betting and betting on all types of activity has become wildly prevalent here in New Jersey across the nation.

But you're looking to address that.

Can you tell us about some legislation that you drafted recently?

Well, I have legislation that would ban what's called micro betting.

I think this is a really dangerous type of betting.

And what micro betting is, is being able to bet on every single pitch of every baseball game or every pass or every possession in a basketball game, every move in a chess match, on and on and on.

And all of these micro bets come at you in such a quick pace, you could bet on something basically every 10 seconds.

And it leads to compulsive behavior and to addiction.

And we're seeing this at a very high rate.

The amount of people reaching out for help and calling these help lines is going up dramatically.

And I don't even think this is betting.

I'm not against betting.

This isn't even betting.

People aren't betting on the results of the game.

They don't even care what the results of the game are.

All they care about is whether the next pitch is a ball or a strike.

So as I said, it leads to compulsive behavior, but it also leads to questions about the integrity of the sports.

You know, when a pitcher can come into the game and know that if the first pitch that he throws is a ball instead of a strike and his friends and himself are going to make money off of it, it leads to changes in the game that are not good for the integrity of the game.

And we've seen indictments over the last year.

Certainly a bigger issue than just here in New Jersey, but we'll see where your bill goes on this and the Soda Pop Act.

I know there's a lot happening in the legislature right now as we finish out and get close to the end of the budget deadline.

Senator Paul Moriarty in District 4, you represent parts of Atlantic, Camden, and Gloucester.

Appreciate you taking some time to talk to us today.

Thank you.

♪ >> "Under the Dome" is made possible in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the American people.

>> That's going to do it for us tonight.

I'm Joanna Gaggis for the entire team here at NJ Spotlight News.

Thanks for being with us.

We'll see you right back here tomorrow.

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