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

Route 1 University.

Educating New Jersey leaders.

Transforming New Jersey's future.

Promotional support provided by New Jersey Business magazine.

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

And by Politico's New Jersey playbook.

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♪ David: At the league, all things are possible.

They are just not always probable.

Hi, everybody, it is "Reporters Roundtable."

I am David Cruz.

Our panel includes Charles Stile , political columnist.

Lilo Stainton, health care writer for NJ Spotlight News and Fred Snowflack, a columnist.

A lot of energy at the league of municipalities conference in Atlantic City this week including what I thought was a feisty panel of the legislative bitter ship of both parties.

We got the chance to talk to Senate President Nick Scutari outside the convention center.

Let's take a look at that.

You just came out of a panel with legislative leaders and I was surprised to see so much conversation about affordable housing.

I did not hear a lot about that during the campaign.

Sen. Scutari: You are absolutely right but that is what was talked about last year.

A lot of money into affordable housing this last year in the budget process.

David: How do you solve this problem?

Jersey City is a boom city, they do not want to build affordable housing unless they get incentives from the media's apology and the suburban areas said they do not want to put people in the middle of nowhere.

Where is the middle ground?

Sen. Scutari: It is a complicated issue and one that I do not have aces think answer for.

It is not something that will solve in lame-duck.

David: Let's talk about lame-duck.

What is left to be done?

I will pick one or two.

Let's talk about OPRA reform, which came up today.

Is that it needs to be reformed.

Others that you are closing the door on transparency.

Sen. Scutari: Absolutely not.

Transparency is in the eye of the beholder.

We cannot allow continue data mining, weaponization and people making money off the process.

In my estimation, it was not meant to create entire business entities.

Towns had to hire multiple folks to comply with these requests.

OPRA was meant for people to have access to information to see where the government was spending money, not to allow outside entities to mine this data and sell it to other entities.

David: You are cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Businesses cannot take advantage of the data mining process and folks cannot get the information from whatever legitimate reasons.

Sen. Scutari: I agree.

We need a balanced approach.

But people will need to pay access for the information.

People are under the gun to get information about how many dog licenses were issued.

I do not think that was the intent of the framers of that act.

It was about having access to information for spending purposes.

David: What are these reforms look like?

Sen. Scutari: It is all on the table.

We have not formulated a written bill.

Those conversations will happen quickly and helpfully we will put something together.

David: How about ELEC reforms?

We saw this past cycle workgroups were able to create phantom candidates and not have to report in advance or until way after.

Does that need to be looked at?

Sen. Scutari: We are lucky we did raise the spending limits because my committees were reported on.

We did not have any role to play.

We are following the rules that are already there.

you can see a fuller scope of what occurred before we make changes.

David: The idea of reforms to this process were already being talked about, that the system was not perfect.

I think you even said when it was passed, what kind of stuff needs to be tweaked?

Sen. Scutari: I am not certain.

The fact of what we did in terms of raising limits did bring more transparency to what people donated.

You can see every dollar that was given to the assembly leadership PAC, senators in tough races, you saw who gave.

David: Let's move to offshore wind.

It is kind of breezy in Atlantic City.

Sen. Scutari: That is why they have them.

In terms of what the pullout was, I guess it is for now.

I do not see that happening.

The one thing the Senate put in was millions of dollars that were supposed to be assigned for the state and we would like to get that money -- it was guaranteed.

I see there will be litigation and they will not just handed over.

David: You are in favor of taking these guys to court?

Sen. Scutari: I am in favor of resolution.

If they made a deal, they should stick to it.

None of that was conditioned on them going forward with the project.

Now that they will not go forward, it does not mean they should not pay for what we did.

David: You have two other projects it already went out to bid.

If somebody bids on those, are you inclined to say let's help these guys with incentives from the state?

Sen. Scutari: I do not know if I am inclined to do that.

I don't know.

David: What does this mean to the governor's clean energy plan?

Sen. Scutari: It is certainly a setback but I have always said we should look at energy with a holistic approach and moving away from some of the pollutants.

Look at other sources of energy.

I do nothing wind will solve all the problems.

You cannot go to full electrification if you do not have the grid to support that.

Substantial changes in the grid and where we get our energy from.

Senator Smith has been working on smallbatch nuclear options and that is something that has shown to produce a lot of energy more consistently than when the wind blows.

David: You think that New Jersey residents-voters are ready to embrace nuclear energy over wind or solar?

Sen. Scutari: I do not know the answer to that question but it is something we can talk about.

Nuclear power has been around a long time and is safer than ever before and should be an option.

We need energy and that is one place where you can get it and it is not a pollutant.

David: I do not know if this is something you make up in lame-duck but what about funding for New Jersey Transit?

The governor said it will be there and that everyone says wait until the election is done and they will come up with a solution.

Sen. Scutari: I will tell you one thing I have talked about in terms of a funding source is the corporate business tax that was suspended.

That is a funding source that would provide $1 billion per year and that sounds about like what they need.

That could be an area we could talk about.

David: Is that something you support?

Sen. Scutari: It is something I could support.

I have not been a fan of trickle-down economics.

This is a business tax for the richest companies in America located here in New Jersey.

The small percentage we have given back, I do not see that coming down.

I think everyone should make a profit but there are drastic needs in New Jersey for tax revenue and that is one that will not hurt the taxpayers.

David: Is it a crisis?

You seem to suggest it was not entirely a crisis.

Sen. Scutari: We will do our job as required.

We will advise on the nominations we get in a timely fashion.

David: What were your takeaways from this past week's elections?

A good night for Democrats.

Is it that the Republicans had a bad message or bad messengers?

Sen. Scutari: It is a combination of both.

The Senate Democrats have the best candidates, up and down the ballot, especially in districts that turned out to be competitive but turned out to be.

competitive.

Assemblymen and senators, outstanding candidates and public servants.

I felt confident they would win and that is what they did, and they won in considerable fashion because they ran great campaigns.

I never saw taxes not come up in an election because we produce the message of tax relief for New Jersey.

David: Any thoughts on the first lady's announcement this week that she will run for U.S. Senate?

Sen. Scutari:Sen. Scutari: I just heard that today so I have not thought about it that much.

David: Senator, appreciate it.

I just heard about it today, he said.

All right, panel, Charlie ,Lilo, Fred, good to see you all.

I felt like there was a lot of stuff happening.

People going to panels and politicians running around, shaking hands and all that.

Fred, I saw you in the lobby on your way.

.

To the cocktail reception.

Open Fred: It was nice to see bipartisanship in action.

A member of Congress and now the mayor of West New York.

He said I do not miss Congress one bit.

He does not miss what is going on in Washington for one minute and that is to be expected.

David: I do not know if what he was wearing when you saw him, but when we talk to him, he had on a black turtleneck and he looked 30 years younger, so leaving Congress can be beneficial to your health.

What did you think about what you saw?

Did you think it was lively?

Does it seem like the league is back?

Fred: Open bar will be lively.

A Republican gathering.

Republicans are trying to figure out what went wrong.

Before the election, they were talking about naming seat in the legislature.

They thought they might gain control.

We know that did not come close to happening.

Republicans did not have a legitimate -- I know you spoke on that with Nick Scutari.

They needed a better candidate.

You always need better candidates.

There is no real answer as to why they did not do as well as they were supposed to.

David: I thought it was interesting that a lot of Republicans I talked to pointed to their wins in towns and counties where they were frankly supposed to win, and that was their big takeaway.

Lilo, I saw you on level 2.

You were looking around and turning around all at once.

I was going to call out but I was not 100% sure that it was you but you looked a little turned around.

Lilo: It was me.

I want to say whoever designed that convention hall should be court-martialed, or tried or something.

It is an unbelievably bad design.

David, I think you got a lot of the conversation with Senate President.

I was underwhelmed by the legislative panel.

My real take away from that was, there are all these towns and local leaders, they may be political but they are really there because of their day job, which is to get paving contracts and make sure potholes are f illed.

They are there but they are learning how to do better contracting or tax collection or whatever the issue.

There seems to be a huge disconnect between them and, sort of the elected officials, at least on the state level.

The elected officials seem to be almost like mini celebrities and get ushered around.

At their appearances, everyone is so thrilled when they show up.

There does not seem to be this collaborative partnership but I would think would be an opportunity at this event.

I will say I learned a lot at the event I went to, which was a presentation by the acting health Commissioner.

As far as the legislative give and take part, I wonder how much local officials get out of it these days.

David: I think there is a certain amount of, "Oh, this is one of the film screenings at a film festival that everyone wants to go to."

You also got an award.

Tell us about that.

Lilo: It was from the New Jersey county and city health officials, who have been a great source to us over the last year.

I should shoutout to their current president, who also sent us a really funny letter -- I think it is funny -- at the beginning of the year that said you do great work at "Spotlight" but you might want to consider talking to some local health officials once in a while because we are the actual boots on the ground.

It was a good point taken.

Don't always talk to the experts.

Talk to the people doing the job.

David: We can sometimes forget that when we are used to going to sources all the time.

Lilo: You have to actually talk to the people who are doing the work, yes.

David: We took a break while we were walking around and we were sitting adjacent to this other workshop that was going on and, man, just to sit through the dense information those people were going through, you better get certified just for sitting through an hour-long presentation.

Props to the people who do not work every day.

Charlie, the first lady announcing her Senate run in the middle of the conference by video release, which is how a lot of people are doing it now, evidently.

How did the launch go?

Charles: It was slick.

I think it was the first time people have heard her voice.

I think, overall, she introduced who she is quite well.

In terms of the video.

I think you have alluded to this in your interview with her, there are still a lot of grassroots discontent that she will have to address about this, what seems to be this entitled fix for her to get this job.

She will have a lot of work to do to douse that out.

David: Did she handle that effectively, do you think, or does she still have a lot of work to do in that regard?

Charles: I think she still has a lot of work to do.

She sounded well-prepared.

She knew the question would come.

The problem is, there has been this slow, steady campaign about the line that has come from the left, the progressive wing of the party and it is not going away anytime soon.

It has been building.

She drops in this campaign as exhibit A of why the system should be changed.

I think it will be tougher than it looks.

David: Somebody coined the phrase Tammany Murphy this week, which I thought was pretty good.

Lilo: I was going to say, I think it is important to recognize she has put certain issues on the map in New Jersey in a way nobody had before.

Maternal child health, racial disparities in health, maternal health in particular.

That is not a small thing.

There are organizations that have been fighting for decades to get people to focus on that and there is no huge money and focus on that.

However, it strikes me that she comes from this position -- and I recognize it a little bit from administration -- where it tends to be wealthier people.

Executives in business who have been extraordinarily successful who argue I am the best person for the job and here are all the reasons, but they are a little bit blind to the process and the sense that there are people who might be great in other ways but do not have that -- but are working through a process, whether it is a political process or a structural corporate coming up through the ranks thing, or whether it is government policy.

There are ways to develop things with coalitions and allies and you work with groups in the legislature and you have to talk to lobbyists.

You do not just find the best thing and drop it into place.

I think it is executive.

It is executive blindness.

I am the best person for the job, why would they not take me?

.

I think it is a little bit of not recognizing the contribution of others to build things along the way.

David: She has Hudson behind her.

Did you get a chance to follow her?

What is the buzz around it, if there was a buzz?

Fred: She has the political machine behind her and two significant counties as far as the Democratic party is concerned.

The rank and file.

We see this a lot.

This is not new.

Bob Menendez.

This is certainly not unheard of but it is a legitimate question.

Everything that has been said so far about what she has done regarding infant mortality, she was not the first lady, if she was not married, would she even be a Senate candidate?

The answer is no, she would not be.

Some people don't care about that but some people do.

I think that is the issue in the primary.

The rank-and-file Democrats who have some shred of idealism against basically the political machine.

It will be fun to watch.

David: Charles, lame-duck session, you heard the Senate President being all coy in Atlantic City.

Sometime stuff gets done during lame-duck but other times, not so much.

Any sense of what they are likely to take up during the upcoming lame-duck session or is it just going to be lame?

Charles: I think they are always a little K.G.

because they come in after the election with a lot of people with competing interests.

I think this OPRA reform, public records reform will be addressed in some capacity.

There is a real alarm about that.

Whether, as you expressed, throwing out the baby with the bathwater kind of approach by shutting down these -- this data mining aspect, the pressure the town clerk's now have to face addressing requests from profiteering law firms, drunk driving arrests and fractions on a daily basis and they are forced to do all that work.

It sounds like a concerned but ultimately, if they shut that down, are they going to make it harder for members of the press and public interest groups to really find out information about the spending of government and the operations of government and Police departments?

David:David: The governor gave a speech.

Did he say anything in 15 seconds?

Fred: I did not think he said anything.

I do not think he said anything momentous.

Nothing that was unexpected.

David: Fair enough.

[LAUGHTER] It is time for our only in Jersey moments.

Lilo: Shocking.

David: Headlines that are quintessentially Jersey.

Charles, you have one for us.

Charles: I just want to note the passing.

It reminded me of this moment in 2016 when Chris Christie, then a candidate for president, he was humble bragging and name dropping Donald Trump at Townhalls.

He regaled one audience about how the judge called him up and said, Chris, would you mind having dinner with my baby brother, Donald?

Chris Christie loved to tell that story because it brought the crowd into the celebrity world.

But through the judge, she set off one of the most tortured relationships in political history.

Chris Christie went from being unable her to enemy.

David: That is her legacy.

Mine comes from the wonderful world of social media, where Democratic gubernatorial candidate Steve Phillips showed a sense of humor at the expense of the funniest lawyer in New Jersey and expose how humorless social media trolls can be.

I am proud to support -- I think he would make an interesting LG for his bipartisan efforts.

Immediately, the post was bombarded by barbs from follow verse who did not get the joke.

He is actually not endorsing him.

That is the joke.

"He is the worst," is the way it went on.

It is a long way until the next election.

That is "Reporters Roundtable" for this week.

Thank you to Senator Scutari for joining us.

You can follow this on X and scan the QR code for full episodes and more.

We are off on the Thanksgiving holiday next week.

Hope yours will be happy.

I am David Cruz.

For all the crew at Gateway Center, thank you for watching.

We will see you in a couple weeks.

>> Major funding for "Reporters Roundtable with David Cruz" is brought you by 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 with industry Association.

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

And by Politico's New Jersey playbook.

A topical newsletter on New Jersey politics.

Online at Politico.com.

♪