Lt. gov. secrecy continues

Good morning!

On Sunday, I said Gov. Mikie Sherrill should address the public about the claims against Lt. Gov. Dale Caldwell. Sherrill issued a statement Tuesday, but it was a whole lotta nothing.

“I have a vital responsibility to the safety and privacy of every person. Anyone must know that they can come forward with a complaint and they will be safe from retaliation. The subject of a complaint must also know and be confident that their rights will be protected as well and they will receive a fair and thorough review,” Sherrill said in a statement.

The statement does not mention Caldwell, whom the New Jersey Globe reports is under investigation for some type of inappropriate conduct with women and ethics offenses. And it does not offer any kind of timeline for when the public gets to know what exactly is going on with the state’s No. 2 elected official.

For New Jersey Republicans, the knives are out, with most calling Sherrill’s statement inadequate and demanding more information. I haven’t seen anything from the Democratic leaders of the Legislature, but the state’s Dem chair, LeRoy Jones, weighed in by bashing the GOP for supporting Trump but pushing for Caldwell to resign.

"It is imperative that any investigation be allowed to run its course and that there be a fair and thorough review of the facts,” Jones said.

Fine. But how much longer should an investigation targeting our lieutenant governor/secretary of state — one that apparently has already gone on for months — continue without the public knowing one single detail about it? We have an election in less than 60 days. Is the guy whose job it is to oversee them even doing that job right now, or solely focused on keeping it?

Read more from Nikita Biryukov.

Immigration: Sophie Nieto-Muñoz today has the second in her three-part series examining New Jersey under President Donald Trump’s mass deportation effort, with this one focusing on migrants who opt to self-deport rather than risk detention or being deported to some country they’ve never lived in. She talked to Julie Moreno, whose husband fled for Mexico soon after Trump was reelected because they both feared where he might end up if picked up by immigration agents. “That life of ours is dead and gone,” she told Sophie.

Health: The state’s auditor reviewed state Department of Health nursing home inspections and found they are not done enough, increasing the risk to the homes’ residents. Auditors found that, as of February, state inspectors were checking nursing homes every 20 months on average (federal and state regs call for them every 15 months). More than a quarter of the facilities had not been inspected in at least two years.

Energy: Environmentalists won a victory at the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals Tuesday when a three-judge panel revoked a key state Department of Environmental Protection permit an energy developer needs to build the controversial Northeast Supply Enhancement pipeline. “This pipeline would not only have destroyed wetlands across New Jersey, but also would tear up the sea floor of Raritan Bay. The DEP’s approval of the water quality permit failed to address key water quality concerns that the public has been raising for years,” said Jackson Garrity, attorney for the enviros challenging the pipeline’s approval.

ICYMI: Federal judges issued two notable ruling on Friday. One of the dismissed a Trump administration lawsuit targeting the Sherrill administration over an order Sherrill signed that restricts immigration agents from some state-owned land. The other tossed a defamation lawsuit Newark Mayor Ras Baraka filed against Alina Habba, our former U.S. attorney, over comments she made about his trespassing arrest at Newark’s migrant jail last year (that charge was quickly dropped).