Big win for NJ trans community

Good morning!

Thursday was a big day for New Jersey’s transgender community, which watched and cheered in Montclair as Gov. Mikie Sherrill signed a new shield law aimed at protecting the community and their doctors from criminal and civil liabilities.

The bill Sherrill signed, which also protects abortion doctors and their patients, has been kicking around the Statehouse for two years, inspired by other states that have criminalized some abortions and transgender healthcare. Sherrill (D) took a shot at the Republican governors of Texas and Florida in her remarks.

“If Greg Abbott or Ron DeSantis tries to investigate someone who came to New Jersey to access care, we will protect anyone seeking care that is legal here in New Jersey from investigations in other states,” she said.

Sherrill framed the bill as a response to “Red Scare” tactics from the White House targeting women who get abortions and transgender individuals. State Sen. Teresa Ruiz (D-Essex), a chief sponsor of the bill and the Senate’s majority leader, said the bill signing shows that New Jersey is “a beacon of hope for everyone who understands democracy.”

“You can’t tell us what we can read on a library shelf but want to be up in our uterus in an exam room,” Ruiz said.

Anti-abortion leaders say they fear the bill was crafted in a way that would allow people to be arrested and charged with a crime if they pray outside abortion clinics.

Read more from Nikita Biryukov.

Schools: Dana DiFilippo has a good report today on Salem High School and its controversial program that allows some students to get free international trips that cost the district ~$4K per student, a perk the state auditor included in a list of grievances against Salem City schools in 2024. A new follow-up from the auditor says Salem schools didn’t heed a handful of his 2024 recommendations. State Sen. Declan O’Scanlon (R) wants action. “It’s outrageous,” O’Scanlon told Dana. “It is time to revisit. We need more money for the audits, and more audits, and more teeth.”

Commentary: Tonanziht Aguas from New Jersey Policy Perspective and Andrea Hetling at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy have thoughts for us today on the 30th anniversary of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and how the direct-cash program helps poor New Jerseyans: “Unfortunately, current debates about the program center more on fraud than on helping families. Spending public funds responsibly is a legitimate goal. But the federal government’s near-total focus on fraud, paired with new demands for data sharing, has piled burdens onto states. Those burdens trickle down to families, who face more red tape both when they apply and when they try to keep their benefits.”

Medicaid: A collection of business groups sued the state treasurer Thursday over a new law hitting big companies with fines if they have 50+ employees on Medicaid. It was one of the splashier initiatives Gov. Mikie Sherrill unveiled when she proposed her first state budget, with Sherrill saying large companies should fork over money to the state when they pay their employees so little the workers have to be on Medicaid. The lawsuit alleges the state statute is preempted by federal law and violates the due process clause of the Constitution. It also would require employers to violate federal privacy laws by asking their workers whether they are on Medicaid, the suit alleges. We’ll have more details on this on the site today.

Hackensack: A classic New Jersey government story from Megan Burrow from the Bergen Record: Thomas McBryde, the former superintendent of Hackensack schools, collected more than $200K working as a consultant for NYC public schools while he was at the helm of Hackensack’s school district ­— and some of that he got while he was suspended from Hackensack over claims of financial mismanagement.

Courts: A New Jersey teenager is no longer suing Meta, which she had accused of creating addictive and harmful social media products, via Eli Tan at the New York Times. The case had been one of nine cases that threatened Meta, YouTube, Snap, and TikTok. The New Jersey teen, who was identified in court records only by her inititals, settled her claims against TikTok and dropped the Meta lawsuit “so she could try to resume her life,” her attorney said.