>> Major funding for Reporters Roundtable is provided by -- 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 in the Garden State since 1954.

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♪ >> You take a week off and everything goes sideways.

Hey, everybody.

It's "Reporters Roundtable."

I'm David Cruz, catching up with her panel today -- our panel today.

Including, Sophie, Matt, and Charles.

We will hear from them in just a few minutes.

But we begin today with the historic changes still shaping the landscape in New Jersey politics, the end of the party line, perhaps, for the June primary and into the future, who knows?

We hope we might have some insight.

Good to see you.

Welcome back to the show.

>> Thanks, David.

Don't put this all on me.

David: You will have to check every morning to see what is changing.

As this week ends, what can you expect about where we are?

It looks like clerks are dropping off where they are.

Looks like kids picking peas off their mashed potatoes.

What is going on?

>> The Democrats appear to half a block for the 2024 race.

The GOP is not quite there yet except in Burlington County, where the clerk is giving them one anyway.

It may not feel like, if you are inside the bubble with New Jersey politics, that we are undergoing massive changes, but we are living through some of the biggest political changes in New Jersey in the last 60 or 75 years.

David: You mentioned someone is also trying to make the case that the ruling should apply to the Republican primary as well.

Word is that stand?

-- where does that stand?

Does that have to go to court too?

>> I think it probably will go to court in Burlington County because the judge felt like he could not authorize the change in the Republican ballot because none of the people seeking relief were Republican candidates.

He left them out of it for now.

Clearly they are going to be part of the larger case when we get past this injunction, but for the moment, it is not going to involve the Republicans.

What will probably bring us back sooner than that is that the Burlington County clerk has decided she is going to do an office block ballot anyway, not the relief Republicans were seeking.

And there are Republican candidates who feel like they are going to be hurt by that decision, so they are not happy.

David: We are going to get to those.

You also mentioned drawings for ballot positions.

Does this affect any of that?

We never paid much attention to this because we always knew who had the line.

Micah: Right, and we are going to look for things like ballot order.

Somebody has got to be first.

We do it by drawing, because everybody's got an equal chance.

That is the standard the judge.

You're going to be looking for things like slogans to see if that matters.

This is not about the high information voters who know a lot about candidates, this is about primary voters who do not know so much and are looking for clues they are not going to find anymore.

David: Charlie, you had a good question for Micah.

>> Yes, good morning.

I find it difficult to believe that these party leaders are just going to surrender this power, this enormous power that they have willingly without a fight.

I am wondering, how do you think that they are going to adapt to this new reality, this new office block in a way that they can still assert their power and wheeled it?

Micah: I am going to give you two answers.

One, they should realize that they've got to run aggressive campaigns, educate voters, rebuild their ground game, rebuild their get out the vote operation.

All those things they did not do because they have the shortcut of the line over the years, they need to put their efforts into rebuilding that.

I said that is what they should do, because I think what they are going to do is attempt some sort of a legislative fix that will try to thread the needle of satisfying the judge.

The problem is that short of replacing the lines entirely, the judge was pretty prescriptive, at least for this year, pretty specific about the office block ballot, and I do not know what he will take short of a full office block ballot.

I don't know that is going to get off the ground.

David: Let's take a look at some of these races.

We profiled Menendez and Bala.

This is a reset for this race, yeah?

Micah: That is exactly the word we are using.

It is not to same Menendez's down-and-out.

He's got all the advantages of incumbency and maybe some of the disadvantages that come with having your dad's name.

But what he does not have is the advantage of the line, of the organization.

Before he had that, before he rebuilt that bridge, when he was struggling because he was sort of giving his father troubles, we said he was in trouble.

He solidified that, got himself out from under that by getting the support of the party.

The question is, how much does the support of the party mean without the line?

Bhalla has the chance to make the case for himself just like Menendez does now.

He's got more money raised than any first-time candidate has ever raised for the house before it New Jersey, so he's going to make the same case Menendez is making.

David: Do we also have a reset in the third Congressional District, Herb Conway and Carol Murphy in the Democratic primary?

The winter likely succeeds and he can mentor Congress.

Is that a reset?

Micah: He may have lost more than any other candidate from this decision, even though she came out in anticipation of the decision.

Conaway had amassed all of the lines in Burlington, in Monmouth, and in merger.

He had what we thought was a decisive advantage.

He still got the support of the organizations, the footwork, their ground game, their endorsement, the money, if that matters, which it certainly does.

What he does not have is there line.

Now Carol Murphy gets a chance to make the same kind of a case, run a better campaign if she can do that, which she and her husband have shown a propensity more than probably anybody else to put together storm campaigns in this state, as one of the state's most respected Democratic campaign officials, if she gets the chance to make the case -- now she gets the chance to make the case the same as him.

David: Talking about of the ruling applies to Republicans, they could have a big impact in the U.S. Senate primary.

You've got the hotel guy and Mayor Christine Glassner, election denier come up against one another.

-- election denier, up against one another.

We talk about how this frees up the mayor to kind of appeal to the rabid base, no?

Micah: Exactly.

This is the kind of change we are going to see now in New Jersey primaries.

She can make the case, and people would say of course I can make the case to primary voters now, but that is now the case.

She can appeal to Trump conservatives, people she feels like she has a kinship with.

She probably has the chance to do that now the same as Bruce Bashaw does.

He had amassed 14 lines, she had seven.

She was concentrated in the northern part of the state.

He had the rest of the state.

That was thought to be a decisive advantage.

It was looking for a second like he was not going to have those, then it was clear he gets to keep them, so now he gets to keep that advantage.

That would have been potentially a big opening for her if those Republican lines had disappeared.

>> Still to be determined, because as we said earlier, this could have to go to court.

>> More to come, yeah.

David: good to see you.

Thanks for coming on.

Micah: Thank you, David.

Panel, greetings to you all.

Sophie, congrats on the nuptials.

You come back to this, new headlines and rulings every weekend.

Does it all make you look forward to some nice, boring budget hearings?

>> It makes me look forward to my honeymoon.

Yes, I am looking forward to it coming down -- calming down, but it is not going to calm down for a while.

I think that how quickly things are moving really highlights how important civic engagement is.

We are all New Jersey junkies and things are moving so quickly for us, so I think that one of our responsibilities in the weeks, months, the next two years is really making sure that voters understand what is happening and how it is going to impact them.

I am not sure how many people actually know that there ballot is going to look different on June 4 or what is going to happen.

I just think that we really need to highlight civic engagement during these really wild weeks.

David: That is a great point.

Charlie, what do you make of all this business?

Is it monumental change or just a blip?

Charlie: I think it is monumental change.

Going back to 60, 75 years ago, I think it is an allusion to the constitutional convention, 1947, although I am not sure -- I don't think it has that same magnitude, but it is one of those red letter dates, and I think you go back to that, and I think the supreme work, one man, one vote that changed New Jersey's politics from 21 County representation to the current format, that was a big move in the late 1960's.

This I think ranks right up there with them.

Although I was a reporter back then.

David: quite a young man you were.

Charles: I could see Matt ready to tee off on me.

>> It is not controversial to think back to that and think it was unfair that Chemung County got the same representation as whatever the big counties were back then, SX, probably.

I wonder if 70 years down the line, no pun intended, this is seeing the same way.

Can you believe the way they used to nominate in New Jersey?

David: We were talking about this a couple minutes ago, thinking how the county organizations finagle out of this.

How do they?

Did they miss their chance to legislate their way out of this?

>> Well, I have been picking some early indications that there might be some type of effort to get legal intervention on the county party side, now that every clerk has dropped out of the appeal.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the only remaining plaintiff's they can't him County Democratic committee, who has abused their power with the line over the years.

Call that an opinion, but you can look at balance yourself, make your own judgment.

Don't listen to me.

You've got fake candidates taking up space and pushing candidates into Siberia, and now it is fitting that they are the only people left in this particular field.

I am going to say they have abused the line and laid the groundwork for the strongest arguments against it.

>> So what is going to happen to county organizations after this?

Matt: They are going to need a -- need to work a lot harder and have a reason for -- I think it will probably bring Democratic politics in New Jersey to the left.

I think it might be a little overstated.

I've heard Michael Rasmussen say before that there was a moderating effect.

Sometimes they were, but not always.

I don't think that party leader has always had moderation in their hearts.

There are various reasons party chairs have backed specific candidates.

In South Jersey, Gilmore is behind the more moderate candidate, but he has also been behind the scenes more far right candidate for governor in 2025.

David: Because it also make the far right more potentially electable in a future where there is no lines?

Colleen: -- Matt: Electable in a primary, but if we are talking statewide, less electable Republicans.

This is something I got to in New Jersey playbook today, which I hope people read, but you have Christine Sereno blaster sounding like a Republican in a red state, still litigating the 2020 election, still putting out these complete fabrications that it was -- that there were all these, I think her words were severe irregularities.

This has been litigated to death.

Trump's Attorney General said it is BS.

David: is she going to be the test case for that?

Matt: Perhaps, if she is the nominee.

This stuff is a dead end in the general.

How much does this need to happen for us to understand that?

The Senate is harder, but Republicans can win state in New Jersey, but if this is what their gubernatorial candidates are going to be like, kiss that goodbye, because New Jersey voters do not go for that stuff.

David: Continuing on the theme for legislative fixes, Sophie, the opera reform bill may or may not be back for a vote this month.

Lawmakers say they want to fix it, but you've got the speaker running for governor, maybe the Senate President -- for governor, maybe, the Senate President fighting with South Jersey, and the governor just had a political setback in his lame-duck years.

The three of them are still a bubbling cauldron.

>> They might be doing that.

It would not be the first time, I guess.

But yeah, Senators Arlo said it did not look like it was going to come up in the special Senate session coming next week.

I don't even know what month it is.

He also said part of the reason why they were holding it is they want to talk through more amendments, so I think that maybe they were hoping that people are paying more attention to this line, all the other stuff going on in the state that , maybe they could take a beat and push it through later, but I have no idea.

I am not too confident that we are going to be able to see the bill, that it's going to be available to the public before -- David: What do you think about that?

Is it dead or what?

Charles: I don't think it is dead.

I think they are determined to get this done, and I do not see any change of course.

I think ultimately they are going to come back with some amendments and we are going to see another kind of maybe RAM through light on this one.

Just because of the political challenges of the speaker, the governor, and the Senate President laid out, I don't think that will have any bearing on them at all.

I think they want to get this done.

I think they may want to wait until some of the fervor over the line cools, because a lot of the same people pushing for reform are the same people banging on the clubhouse door.

But I don't have any sense that they are going to surrender their power on this one.

David: Matt, what about this voucher bill that is not a voucher bill?

It's got a lot of layers, but what is this all about?

Sophie: they are not technique -- Matt: They are not technically vouchers.

It is a backdoor way around vouchers that a lot of other states already do.

This bill is a product being pushed by the Orthodox Jewish community, primarily in Lakewood.

They formed a pact recently that spent a lot of money backing this, including a lot of donations to the sponsors.

The yeshivas in Lakewood already had a lot of funding for transporting students for security, and now they basically want taxpayers to fund religious education.

At bottom, all this spend is kind of what this is.

Others would take advantage of this too, but this is where the bill came from.

These are the primary people pushing for this bill.

Need to be honest about what it actually is.

David: You said earlier in the week in your column that you did not think it had a chance of getting through?

Matt: No, and coming back to the line, it is interesting, it shows this community's recent political clout, that they got all these Democrats to sponsor the bill, but now without the line, there is a good chance money matters more in primaries.

The NJAA can drop $5 million.

As long as they are opposed to this bill and as long as Murphy as governor, that is a hell of a force.

David: Sophie, as for actual government functioning, you had a piece this week on a study that found the state's unemployment system was what, doing great by the unemployed?

Sophie: So, this study released by the center of popular democracy found that about 700,000 New Jerseyans are collectively excluded from receiving unemployment benefits.

A big group of those are people excluded due to federal or state statues.

Undocumented workers who are unemployed, people returning from incarceration, caregivers who left work was -- who left the workforce and are reentering, students unable to find jobs.

None of those people are eligible for unemployment.

There is another group of people the report highlighted, people who are eligible but do not know they are.

The report kind of highlights this digital divide while, as people who make higher incomes are more likely to know about the benefits that are available to them versus low income, they might not even apply because they might not think they are eligible, so why take the time to go through this complicated process?

It might not be in their language.

The report stresses that this is a big reason why people are not receiving unemployment, and it calls on lawmakers across the country to open up the state's unemployment insurance so more people are eligible, but it also directs the state to maybe have a campaign so people know who is eligible and they can claim an offense.

-- claim benefits.

David: 2025, Jack is back.

Is it a different GOP in 2024, or is he still a front runner?

Charles: I still think he is probably the front runner.

This is a different GOP.

It is a deeper red than the last time around.

The base is far more Trump-devoted.

It is going to be a lot more difficult for him to navigate.

They have made a decision to basically seed the Trump vote.

I am not going to sit therein walk around a balance beam trying to appeal to everybody.

I am going to basically run a moderate campaign with him at the center.

>> I have about a minute.

We were off, so we missed this about filing a complaint against the mayor, failing to report hundreds of billions of dollars.

That is a lot of money.

He said it was an outside firm.

I have a feeling the administration is going to be in for some surprises once they start running statewide, like more scrutiny, what do you think?

Matt: This is the second time he has faced these complaints.

They already had to pay a $30,000 something fine.

It is hefty.

He says he is committed to transparency.

You have to proactively commit more.

All of us missed this during the campaign in Newark because none of us were paying attention, but in a statewide race certainly he also has a Super PAC that is coming.

David: Running statewide is going to be a different animal.

Time for only in Jersey moments.

Sophie, you've got one for us.

Sophie: Yes, the twitter fight between Bhalla and Menendez.

It turned really nasty.

It went from entertaining tenacity.

But I also think it is not the first Hudson County twitter fight, so it is not going to be the last.

It started with Bob Menendez attacking Bhalla over the Hoboken Council not accepting his budget.

Bhalla hits back with a gold bars joke.

Menendez hosts a picture of his family and says this is who I am fighting for.

Bhalla hits and where it hurts.

The fight ended there, crickets after that.

The replies shifted.

First they were on the mayor's side, then they went too far.

It is always interesting to see how these things play out on social media and the little media bubble we are in, it makes it entertaining to some extent.

David: Mine comes from Red Bank, where Ryan from Red Bank Green reported on self-serve University, a new course intended to teach Jersey motorists how to pump their own gas, because you cannot do that in Jersey, so most of us don't know how.

The story went viral, and somehow it's been picked up.

101.5 had a web post and the story got mentioned on their morning show.

The only problem is self-serve University does not exist.

Monday was, after all, April 1, fools.

They played it straight and fooled a lot of people, but when you are in the news business, it is important to, I don't know, make a phone call to confirm even one or two facts before you repost the story.

Props to Brian for his excellent piece.

For those of you who reposted it without confirming, there is a new worse opening up at the local community college.

It is called journalism 101.

That is it for this week.

Charlie, Sophie, Matt, good to see you all.

Acts also to Micah Rasmussen for joining us.

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

For the entire crew here, thanks for watching.

See you next time.

>> Major funding for reporters round table with David Cruz is brought to you by RWJ Barnabas health.

To 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 in the Garden State tense 1954.

And by Politico's New Jersey playbook, a newsletter on Garden State politics, online at Politico.com.