New year begins

Good morning!

We finally have a budget, approved not quite as late as last year’s but still solidly at the last minute.

I’m off until July 13. ✌️

Budget: Well, they finally wrapped up the budget, with a few hours to spare. It’s $60.7 billion, not counting the $359 million in additional spending they tacked on in a separate bill to make it look like they weren’t blowing past Gov. Mikie Sherrill’s spending limit. “This budget runs towards our toughest problems, not away from them. It’s the most fiscally responsible budget passed in decades and invests in the priorities that matter most to working families,” Gov. Mikie Sherrill said at a press conference Tuesday night. Republican lawmakers are less enthused. “New Jersey’s governor said she wouldn’t raise taxes. This budget does. The governor said she would cut spending in this budget. In fact, the budget increases spending by $765 million,” said Assemblyman Mike Inganamort

Health: The Legislature finally approved a long-stalled bill aimed at protecting reproductive and transgender healthcare providers and their patients, a major win for the state’s LGBTQ community and their allies. “New Jersey is a great, liberty-loving state that will remain a safe haven for those who only want to live happy, productive lives while accessing medically necessary and proven medical care,” transgender Trenton Councilwoman Jennifer Williams said.

NJ Transit: Riders on NJ Transit can expect 3% fare hikes starting today, part of the agency’s 2024 plan to increase bus and rail tickets annually. NJ Transit spokesman Jim Smith said riders expressed a preference for smaller, annual increases “rather than going multiple years without an increase and then implementing a steeper double-digit increase.” Prior to 2024, the agency had not hiked fares since 2015. One regular NJ Transit rider, Adam Reich, has started a petition to force NJ Transit to conduct public hearings ahead of its annual fare hikes.

Tom Kean Jr.: Yesterday Rep. Tom Kean Jr. finally broke his silence over his nearly four-month absence from Congress, saying during a floor speech in the House that he was hospitalized after a depression diagnosis.  “When people hear the word depression, many people think simply it means feeling sad,” Kean said. “Depression is so much more than that. It is physical. It is emotional. And until you experience it yourself, it’s difficult to fully understand how powerful this illness can be.”

SCOTUS: The U.S. Supreme Court handed President Donald Trump a major loss Tuesday, ruling 6-3 that Trump’s order seeking to redefine birthplace citizenship is unconstitutional. “Citizenship, then and now, was the right to have rights—to freely participate in our political community,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority. “The Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to ‘every free-born person in this land.’ We keep that promise today.”