Sherrill lays out Affordability Agenda to lower costs of housing, health care, energy

With candidates across the state racing to file their nominating petitions today, kicking off New Jersey’s primary season in earnest, Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-Montclair) is launching her new Affordability Agenda, the first major policy plan of the congresswoman’s campaign for governor.

At an event in Bloomfield today, Sherrill outlined six areas that she’ll focus on if elected to bring costs down for New Jersey residents: housing, energy, health care, taxes, child care, and food prices. Sherrill has heard from people across the state, she said – she was flanked at today’s event by a firefighter, a pharmacist, and a member of the Laborers’ union – and they have all told her they’re struggling to make ends meet.

“I’ve heard from a retiree in Paterson about having to take on another job in retirement in order to continue to live in the city where she grew up and where she raised her kids,” Sherrill said. “It’s the firefighter living in Berkeley Heights with a newborn who’s going to have to pay as much for child care as he does for his mortgage. Or the single mom who had to pull her kids out of school and move to a different town because she can’t make rent.”

“These are the struggles that keep families up at night, and for far too long, career politicians have promised to do something about it, but nothing seems to change in New Jersey – and I’ve had enough,” she continued.

On housing costs, one of the policy areas Sherrill identified as a top priority when she first launched her campaign, Sherrill said that she plans to pursue a variety of strategies to increase housing supplies: converting underused office spaces, strip malls, and the like into housing; providing incentives for municipalities to build more “missing middle” housing; and streamlining the state’s permitting and approval processes to reduce delays in the construction of new homes, among other efforts.

To lower energy prices, Sherrill said her administration would invest more in in-state clean energy efforts, especially solar energy, which she said could be put on underused state facilities and encouraged in local communities. Sherrill also laid some of the blame for high energy costs on regional grid operators, whom she accused of stalling clean energy projects: “I’ll demand accountability from our regional grid operators to bring clean energy projects online faster, because years of delays are simply unacceptable,” she said.

Tax relief, Sherrill argued, could be accomplished both by expanding the variety of tax credits available to New Jerseyans – the Child Tax Credit, the Earned Income Tax Credit, a caregiver assistance tax credit, and back-to-school sales tax holidays – and by making the government more efficient with taxpayers’ money through shared services and State Health Benefits Program reforms.

Sherrill’s ideas for health care revolve around transparency – making health care pricing more transparent and requiring disclosures from health care companies justifying premium increases – and around cracking down on practices and bad actors that lead to higher costs in the first place, like price gouging, monopolies, and Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs).

And on child care and food prices, Sherrill laid out a number of different ways to increase affordability: expanding universal pre-K, providing free school meals, increasing child care training, targeting corporations that artificially inflate food prices, incentivizing investments by small food retailers, and more.

Sherrill also repeatedly invoked the specter of Donald Trump and Elon Musk, two people that the next governor – whoever they may be – will have to work with and navigate around. At her press conference today, Sherrill made the case that she’s best positioned to push back on the policies coming out of Washington.  

“Right now we have a White House that is undermining the very foundations of our economy,” Sherrill said. “As governor, I’ll confront those threats and stand up for New Jersey, but make no mistake: if we allow [leading GOP candidates] Jack Ciattarelli or Bill Spadea to become governor, they will bring that same chaos and destruction to New Jersey. We simply can’t afford that, but I know New Jersey can chart a different path forward.”

Sherrill is far from the first candidate to release a detailed agenda in what is increasingly becoming a policy-dense Democratic primary campaign. Newark Mayor Ras Baraka and Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-Tenafly) have both unveiled sweeping plans to remake New Jersey’s economic and tax policies (in very different ways), while Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop has been steadily dropping extremely thorough policy plans ever since he first entered the race in 2023.

Not surprisingly, much of the campaign itself has not focused on those policy platforms, and has instead revolved around the usual topics that make New Jersey politics tick: endorsements, alliances, money, and the occasional personal attack. On many of those fronts, Sherrill seems like an early frontrunner, having earned the backing of most county party organizations outside of South Jersey, although the demise of the county line makes those endorsements less meaningful than they once were.

And one of Sherrill’s supporters, Bloomfield Mayor Jenny Mundell, appeared with Sherrill today to help the congresswoman make her pitch to voters. Lots of politicians make big promises on solving their problems and improving affordability, Mundell said, but Bloomfield residents have firsthand experience of Sherrill getting results.

“We all know that these challenges are challenges that all New Jerseyans face, and here in Bloomfield, we know that Mikie Sherrill is the leader who won’t just promise to get things done – she will actually deliver on those promises,” Mundell said. “Mikie has represented us in this district in Congress since 2018, and here in Bloomfield, we know that she gets things done – she’s gotten things done with us for years.”