Black eye for Cherry Hill schools

Good morning!

Cherry Hill’s school district got a well-deserved smackdown in court recently over its lawsuit targeting independent journalist Ben Shore.

The district claimed Shore filed so many records requests with the district that it amounted to harassment and it wanted to bar him from doing so for a year. But Judge Michael Mikulski last week dismissed the district’s complaint, saying there was no evidence of ill-intent on Shore’s part.

“This is the right outcome … Public records belong to the public and no one should live in fear that they will be sued for seeking basic transparency,” said CJ Griffin, an attorney specializing in public records who represented Shore (Griffin has also represented us in various legal matters).

What was comically awful about the Cherry Hill district’s lawsuit is that it simultaneously claimed Shore was harassing it by filing so many records requests but also conceded that he filed about one per month. The district has 1,000 employees and its budget tops $250 million.

Read more from Nikita Biryukov.

ICE: Immigrant supporters rallied in Highland Park Tuesday in support of the family of Edwin Jovanny Lopez Cornejo, who died Saturday in Newark after six weeks of being detained at migrant jail Delaney Hall. “I’m going to grow up without a father,” said Ashley, Cornejo’s 12-year-old daughter. “They didn’t even let him see me one last time before he died.” Rallygoers called for Delaney Hall to be closed and for state officials to investigate Cornejo’s death.

Politics: The fight over the county line — the primary ballot design that critics say helped give certain candidates an unfair boost — is finally over, with the last holdout county, Bergen, coming to a settlement with plaintiffs who sued over the practice back in 2018. The end of the county line has helped boost the number of candidates running for election in New Jersey because they now have an actual shot at winning, one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys, Yael Bromberg, told Nikita. “I think it’s very clear that we’ve seen that abolishing the line has been transformative for New Jersey politics, welcoming new voices and perspectives that were previously completely excluded from the process and at least giving them a fair shot in the primary election,” she said.

Courts: A federal judge has rejected the Trump administration’s move to end federal oversight of a bank that avoided giving loans to Black and Hispanic customers and wouldn’t open branches in certain neighborhoods in and around Newark. The judge determined that the bank had not finished doing what it promised to do in its consent decree. “The people of Newark and its surrounding areas are entitled to a lending market free from discrimination, period,” said Dan Urevick-Ackelsberg, senior attorney at the Public Interest Law Center, who represented advocates in court. “This ruling will help them have it.”

Guns: The U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals last month overturned the state’s nearly 40-year old ban on certain semiautomatic weapons, but the court decided Tuesday to stay that decision as New Jersey seeks to appeal it to the U.S. Supreme Court. Gun owners who challenged the law had previously urged gun owners not to take any action in case of a stay.

Housing: Franklin Schneider at Shelterforce dives deep into a housing story often neglected, one that focuses on homeowners who are “house rich cash poor.” They’re on fixed incomes but dealing with rising property taxes and utility and maintenance costs, plus emerging medical and caregiving expenses. Give it a read!

Trenton: I got a genuine chuckle from Dan Han at Politico New Jersey yesterday with his report that ex-Gov. Phil Murphy’s official Statehouse portrait will be the priciest ever, at $135K, and will be created by “a world-renowned artist whose portrait experience includes painting celebrities and U.S. presidents.” A photo framed at a Michael’s would cost a fraction of this.

World Cup: A big surprise from Adam Crafton at The Athletic: “U.S. host cities for the 2026 World Cup are chasing FIFA for millions of dollars they believe they were promised by soccer’s governing body which have so far gone unpaid.”