NYC NOW - November 6, 2023: Midday News

Episode Date: November 6, 2023

The Legal Aid Society is criticizing New York City over what it calls subpar living conditions in its jail system. Plus, the New York/New Jersey women's soccer team Gotham FC is headed to the finals of the National Women's Soccer League for the first time after beating the Portland Thorns Sunday. Finally, the entire New Jersey Legislature is up for election tomorrow. WNYC’s Michael Hill talks it all through with New Jersey reporter Nancy Solomon.

Welcome to NYC now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. It's Monday, November 6th. Here's the midday news from Lance Slucky. The Legal Aid Society is slamming the city over its jail system's subpar living conditions. A report from an outside consultant detailed vermin infestations, fire hazards, and a neglected ventilation system in city jails this year. Lauren Stevens DeVittavits is a staff attorney with the Legal Aid Society.

People in custody are people, too, and they deserve to live in conditions that respect their human dignity. The Ombudsman found less than 60 percent of intake and living areas in jails are compliant with court sanitation orders. The Office of Compliance Consultants periodically monitors the Department of Correction, the DOC, and the mayor's office did not immediately respond to request for comment. The New York, New Jersey women's soccer team is celebrating today. Gotham FC is headed to the National Women's Soccer League Championship finals for the first time after eking out of victory against the Portland Thorns last night. They'll face Seattle for the championship Sunday. This is WNYC. For WNYC, I'm Michael Hill.

The entire New Jersey legislature is up for election tomorrow. It's expected to be a low turnout election, but with some very important end, interesting issues facing voters. W&MIC's Nancy Solomon is here to explain. Nancy, good morning. Good morning, Michael. Low turnout doesn't necessarily mean unimportant, as we know. What's at stake in tomorrow's Garden State elections?

Well, you know, Michael, the conventional wisdom predicts that Democrats could lose a few seats in the Senate and the Assembly. That would help Republicans return to relevancy, given the small gains they also made in 2021. even if they don't take the majority in either chamber. But low turnout can make for a very unpredictable outcome because coordinated efforts to get more voters from one party or the other can really swing things. I think the parents' rights movement, that that's the conservative backlash against policies that do things like prohibits schools from outing transgender kids to their parents. I think that movement has the potential to swing races that we might not be paying attention to. These are the same groups that propose banning certain books from school libraries and changing the way sex education is taught.

What makes you think they have that kind of broad appeal in New Jersey? Right. Three things. One, this is one of the reasons that Republican Jack Chitterelli came so close to defeating Governor Phil Murphy in 2021. Two, Republicans running for the legislature certainly think that this is going to help them. If their websites are any indication, many of them have parents' rights as the number one issue. And three, I found one number particularly telling. The New Jersey Project, one of the leading groups fighting the anti-discrimination protections for transgender students, has a list of recommended school board candidates, 481 of them. That suggests that just the strength of this movement,

I mean, it suggests not just the strength of this movement, but also the extent to which school board races could drive conservative and hence Republican turnout. New Jersey has a lot of small school districts as we know. How many are on the ballot tomorrow? Right. There are like more than 600 school districts. districts. About 90% of them are holding elections for at least some of their seats on their school boards.

Those elections used to be held in the spring, but districts now have the choice about when to hold them and most choose November. So this is a fairly new development, the November school board elections. The last time we had an election with state legislative races at the top of the ticket, meaning they're the highest office holding election, no federal candidates, no statewide, candidates. That was in 2011. So we've never really seen what school board races can do to swing a state legislative election like this. Nancy, what other issues are you seeing that could influence tomorrow's outcome? Well, the big news last week was that Orsted, the Danish wind developer, is canceling its offshore wind projects in New Jersey. You know, that's a major problem for Governor Murphy's

efforts to stop global warming and create jobs. But I don't see that really affecting who decides to go vote. I mean, if a dead whale were to wash up at the shore, maybe. And just to be clear, there's absolutely no evidence that wind projects are killing whales, but people think they are. Affordability and high property taxes are always an issue. And people who watch Fox News have gotten a steady diet of how Democrats want to supposedly take away their gas. stove, even though there's no proposal in New Jersey to do that, or they're gas cars. That could pull a few people out. On the Democratic side, I'm not sure to what extent abortion rights are still motivating people. We've certainly seen that to be true in red states, but I haven't

seen any polling on whether that's motivating voters in New Jersey. Polls are open in New Jersey from 6 in the morning to 8 in the evening. W in my season, Nancy Solomon. Nancy, thank you. Thanks, Michael. Thanks for listening. This is NYC Now from WNYC. Be sure to catch us every weekday, three times a day, for your top news headlines and occasional deep dives. And subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

We'll be back this evening.