State-funded stadium to host soccer team

Good morning!

New Jersey’s role in the pro-sports world is pretty small. We have the Jersey Devils, naturally, plus three other teams that play here but pretend they play in New York: the Giants, the Jets, and the Red Bulls.

Gov. Mikie Sherrill announced Wednesday that a new pro-soccer team is headed to Middlesex County: the minor league affiliate for New York City FC’s Major League Soccer franchise. Not sure how many people are going to care, but I guess we take what we can get.

"New Jersey is a soccer state, and today we're once again giving fans across the Garden State a team to call their own," Sherrill said in a statement.

A new soccer team calling New Jersey home is probably only interesting to soccer fans. But here’s something all Garden State taxpayers should know, via Katie Sobko at the Bergen Record: The stadium where the team will play is being built thanks to ~$200 million in state funds packed into a string of recent budgets. It’s located at Middlesex College, the county’s community college.

The total includes $50 million in pandemic relief funds. The news brought a classic response from Sen. Declan O’Scanlon (R-Monmouth): “WTF.”

“Claiming this is a success and hiding the $200 million waste of taxpayer and COVID relief money behind the ribbon cutting is a slap in the face to people who want our state to focus on affordability. Minor-league mentality gets you minor-league results. New Jersey taxpayers deserve better,” O’Scanlon said.

Prisons: Dana DiFilippo has some alarming news today related to New Jersey prisons. The new system the state uses to let people on the outside message inmates requires you to upload an image of your driver’s license or passport to do so. That has some critics worried about the data privacy implications. “Anything that complicates or creates heightened requirements for people trying to be in communication with their loved ones is wrong, especially in the era of unclear boundaries between what is accessible and even mined by companies that are already working in collaboration with other sorts of surveillance,” said the Rev. J. Amos Caley, an organizer with New Jersey Prison Justice Watch and pastor at the Reformed Church of Highland Park.

The news comes at the same time as data security experts discovered hackers selling digital scans of more than 153 million driver’s licenses from people in the United States and Canada apparently collected by a Louisiana-based identity verification company.

Courts: New Jersey’s attorney general is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in on sports bets offered by platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket. New Jersey and other states want to regulate those bets, but the appeals court that oversees our state has recently ruled that only the federal government can. Attorney General Jen Davenport told the nation’s high court that because circuit courts are split on this issue, the justices should step in. “Companies like Kalshi claim to offer legal sports betting in all 50 States, but they refuse to follow the gambling laws of any State,” she said. “These companies have no right to offer their sports bets without following state law, which is why dozens of States.”

2026: The apparently rushed nature of the U.S. Postal Service’s push to regulate mail-in voting in advance of November’s midterm elections has some state officials nervous. “In some States, it would be impossible at this point to comply with the last-minute rollout of USPS’ novel ballot-verification program,” more than 20 Democratic-led states suing to block the order said in a Wednesday court filing. “In other States, there will be chaos.” President Trump and Republicans have said the changes are needed to prevent noncitizens from voting; Democrats contend it is part of Trump’s push to disenfranchise millions of voters in Democratic areas of the US.

Labor: Greg Lalevee, business manager of the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 825, writes for the Bergen Record on the importance of organized labor in 2026: “Especially in these times when screaming at and demeaning those who disagree with us has become acceptable behavior, today’s labor movement is based on common interest and collective action, uniting Americans looking to climb the economic ladder of success rather than dividing us.”

Dolly: Two New York lawmakers are introducing a bill to rename 9/25 “9 to 5” day in honor of the late, great Dolly Parton. New Jersey legislators could do the same but my guess is they prefer to remain on extended summer vacation, which started July 1 and ends probably in November.