N.J. needs a public advocate in light of attack at women’s prison, deaths at veterans homes, lawmakers say
Updated Feb 13, 2021;
A trio of Democratic state senators announced Thursday that they will introduce legislation to create an independent public advocate office that would have investigative and legal powers to help protect vulnerable populations of New Jersey residents.
The mission of the office would be to “protect the safety and rights of vulnerable populations in state and county correctional facilities, veterans homes, psychiatric hospitals, developmental centers, community-based programs and under state guardianship,” Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg, D-Bergen, and Sens. Linda Greenstein, D-Middlesex, and Nellie Pou, D-Passaic said in the announcement.
NJ senators want prisons chief gone amid abuse scandal
There are growing calls for Gov. Phil Murphy to fire the Department of Corrections commissioner amid a probe of accusations of abuse by corrections staff against inmates at the state s women’s prison.
All 25 Senate Democrats have called for Marcus Hicks to immediately resign as DOC commissioner following the suspension of 30 employees at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women along with a new internal investigation stemming from a Jan. 11 incident. Republicans also have called for his removal.
“He has demonstrated time and again that he is not up to the task of running the Department of Corrections, a department that holds the responsibility for the custody and care of approximately 20,000 state-sentenced offenders housed across 12 state correctional facilities, county jails and community halfway houses,” the lawmakers said in a Jan. 28 letter to the governor.
TRENTON Backers of a bill that would solidify and expand abortion rights in New Jersey are demanding that the proposal gets heard in the Legislature this month, more than four months after it was unveiled.
Kaitlyn Wojtowicz, vice president of public affairs for Planned Parenthood Action Fund of New Jersey, said it has been 131 days since the Reproductive Freedom Act was proposed but it hasn’t yet gotten a hearing, despite the endorsement of Gov. Phil Murphy.
It has 22 sponsors and co-sponsors in the Assembly and six in the Senate, all of them Democrats, and Wojtowicz said she hasn’t heard a policy reason for the holdup.
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