Category: News

September 7, 2023
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

TESTA RESPONDS TO BOMBSHELL REPORT FROM DOJ & U.S. ATTORNEY’S OFFICE FOR NJ

[VINELAND, NJ] – Today, State Senator Michael Testa, Jr. slammed Governor Phil Murphy and former DOH Commissioner Judy Persichilli after a bombshell report was released Thursday by the Department of Justice and U.S. Attorney’s office for New Jersey. The report indicates that there were inadequate pandemic infection control measures and medical care at two New Jersey state-run veterans homes during the COVID-19 pandemic. It was determined that these actions, or lack thereof, violated the U.S. Constitution.

“Today’s news confirms what we have known for over three years since ‘fourteen days to stop the spread’ changed our lives forever. The Murphy administration clearly played a role in the countless deaths of our nation’s heroes,” said Testa. “I find it odd that to this day, the Governor and ‘the woman who needs no introduction’ have still yet to admit any shortcomings in their response to the pandemic in our state’s veterans and nursing homes,” Testa continued. “Our fallen heroes and their loved ones deserved so much better than the unfortunate outcome they received, which we now know violated the very rights in the Constitution they fought so bravely to protect.”

Testa concluded, “Our heroes also deserved better than spending their final hours alone with no loved ones there to support them due to negligence. We need leadership in Trenton that is unafraid to admit their shortcomings and actually ‘follows the science’ when the next ‘public health emergency’ comes our way. I can only pray that the same mistakes made in 2020 are never allowed to occur again. New Jersey deserves better.”

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Senator Michael L. Testa, Jr. is a State Senator representing New Jersey’s First Legislative District which includes Atlantic, Cape May, & Cumberland Counties. He is a dad, husband, and leader in fighting for the needs of New Jersey’s working families.

June 28, 2023

By Sen. Mike Testa, Jr.

Earlier this month, New Jersey voters selected the candidates to champion their needs in the New Jersey Senate and General Assembly. Now that the primaries are over, it’s time we unify behind a cause many New Jersey families are increasingly trending towards: putting a stop to 

the disastrous Murphy Mandate and restoring sanity to the Garden State. June was a battle within our party, but November is when we win the war. 

Many Republican candidates passed through difficult, acrimonious races in June, where voters were tasked with analyzing small policy and personality differences. But in November the differences need to be made clear: Republican candidates in New Jersey must stand for affordability, solutions to problems the average voter faces, and a commitment to fight the Murphy agenda. Every candidate on our side of the aisle must be focused on meeting voters where they are, and run serious campaigns focused on delivering real, tangible, wins for their constituents. 

That’s how I won a tight race in 2019, and powered my fellow Cumberland Republicans to take back control of the county. How did we do it? We were on the ground, speaking to voters about what they needed, and we listened. We heard that voters were worried about affordability; solutions to problems they actually face: not lofty climate goals or progressive wishlist items; and having a candidate they trust to fight for their needs. It’s simple: be the candidate you would want to vote for. 

We must apply those lessons learned and carry them forward into 2023: these are the Murphy Midterms. Democrats are massively out of step with average New Jerseyans, less than half of voters approve of Phil Murphy’s job in office. Every voter who disapproves of his job performance can be a future Republican, we just need to speak to them and show them there is another way. 

Murphy nearly lost in 2021 to an underfunded, under-reported-on challenger. Now we have momentum, and we’re here to stop his Woke, weird agenda. If Republicans focus on opposing his radical agenda, and advocate for good jobs, schools that teach English and math, and opportunities for all New Jerseyans, we will shock the Trenton Democrats in 2023. We want a New Jersey that is good to working class families, where anybody who works hard and plays by the rules can succeed and raise a family. 

Let’s focus on issues that matter, and leave the crazy politics to Murphy and his friends, we know they’ve got enough of it. November is our opportunity to support Republican voices that will keep New Jersey the incredible place to live and raise a family. 

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Senator Michael L. Testa, Jr. is a State Senator representing New Jersey’s First Legislative District which includes Atlantic, Cape May, & Cumberland Counties. He is a dad, husband, and leader in fighting for the needs of New Jersey’s working families.

June 5, 2023

By Senator Michael Testa, Jr.

Tomorrow, New Jersey voters will be tasked with the responsibility of selecting their candidates for the 2023 Senate and General Assembly elections across our state. This primary season is pitting Republican against Republican and Democrat against Democrat in hotly contested races, with voters from the far North of the State to its very Southern tip (and even in mythical Central Jersey) examining who is best qualified to represent their interests in Trenton. Easily lost in the negative ads and constant infighting is what needs to be clear for all New Jersey voters: the November elections are the Murphy Midterms, and an incredible chance to tell our out-of-touch Governor that his mandate is over.

Each race and district is unique, and selecting the person who best represents you is essential, but it’s important to make sure we keep our eye on the prize: saying no to Governor Phil Murphy and his weird and Woke policies in November. Republican candidates who prevail will be keeping this in mind, and so should the voters. Let’s be clear: less than half of voters approve of Murphy’s job in office. Half think the state is headed in the wrong direction. Speaking to those frustrated voters is how we win elections.

That’s how I won a tough race in 2019. South Jersey voters were fed up; we had enough of Governor Murphy’s failed policies. What happened? Along with my running mates Erik Simonsen and Antwan McClellan, we flipped the First Legislative District. This feat had not been accomplished in 28 years. And we did it in a year where Republicans were not predicted to be successful. Since then, I have fought vigorously for South Jersey, and delivered key wins: from suing Trenton bureaucrats to re-open South Jersey’s economy, to providing relief to working families and small businesses, to forcing Murphy to re-open the MVC. That’s how we went from a close fight in 2019 to a dominant victory in 2021. And it’s how we flipped Cumberland County from blue to red – and how we took multi-year control of county government for the first time in 40 years.

Murphy’s near-defeat in 2021 tells us all we need to know: New Jerseyans from across the political spectrum aren’t down with his Woke, weird agenda. Not only did we almost knock off Murphy, we flipped six legislative seats, and laid the groundwork for even more this year. New Jerseyans from across the political spectrum want legislators who are going to fight for New Jersey. They’re going to vote for candidates who’ll support law enforcement, fight for parental rights in education, and value economic opportunity for their families.

In the last two years since his shocking near-upset, Governor Murphy has doubled down, proposing a school budget plan that would obliterate funding for students across the Garden State. He’s forced offshore wind on the backs of our vacation hotspots, fishermen and wildlife, and expanded state spending on countless meaningless pet projects. He can’t seem to find $150 million to fund schools, but he does have $150 million of nonsense, including $3.6 million for a castle in Paterson, $1 million for his own furniture and vehicles, and $12 million for a French Museum in Jersey City, he expects taxpayers to pay for.

Phil Murphy’s agenda is ridiculous, and making it harder for working people to succeed in the state we are all choosing to live and raise our families in. We need a change in Trenton, and that starts with electing a majority of smart, principled Republicans to oppose the Murphy agenda.

I encourage everyone reading this to vote in the upcoming primary elections for those Republican candidates who are most likely to successfully oppose Murphy’s radical agenda, and who care about good jobs, safe schools, and opportunities for New Jerseyans of all walks of life. This message appeals far beyond our party, because it’s a message everyone but Phil Murphy understands: we want a state that is good to working people, where anybody who works hard and plays by the rules can succeed.

We’re circling the wagons on Murphy’s failed governorship here in Trenton. Now we need the support of voters to elect strong, conservative leadership, who will stand up to and block his woke agenda. It all starts on June 6th.

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Senator Michael L. Testa, Jr. is a State Senator representing New Jersey’s First Legislative District which includes Atlantic, Cape May, & Cumberland Counties. He is a dad, husband, and leader in fighting for the needs of New Jersey’s working families. 

May 11, 2023

By Senator Michael Testa, Jr.

Imagine: you just drove to your daughter’s high school tennis match, excited to watch her compete, when a player on the opposing team catches your eye. It’s me, a 6’2”, 200lb man with a five o’clock shadow and pink headband. That’s right, I’m the district’s newest brave trans athlete — and I came to win.

What sounds like an episode of South Park is becoming increasingly common in women’s sports across the country, from the middle school level to professional sports. In 2021, just across the Delaware River, Penn swimmer Lia Thomas, formerly William, began obliterating female records overnight after a lackluster men’s career, becoming the top female collegiate athlete in the 500 meter freestyle.

Should it be shocking to anyone that someone who is biologically male, went through puberty as a man, and trained at a collegiate level as a man for nearly three years would dominate in women’s sports? Of course not, but somehow activists have hijacked the argument about fairness in women’s sports and turned what should be an obvious truth — that biological men and women are, on the whole, built differently — into a national debate. And it’s happening in the Garden State as well, despite the laws of our nation preventing it.

Title IX was passed in 1972 to ensure girls and women are not discriminated against and have a fair playing field in sports. That level playing field is now in jeopardy with male athletes competing against women, ruining competitive integrity. That’s why I sponsored the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act, to shield women’s sports from this assault and protect opportunities for female athletes in the Garden State.

To pretend that people with XX and XY chromosomes are going to perform the same on measures of physical force, speed and agility is downright insanity: anyone with eyes knows that any physically fit man is going to dominate at the highest level of women’s sports. As a former college tennis player, I know this myself.

Many on the Left will ask: why do you care so much? Why exclude transgender women from sports in their chosen gender? It’s simple: I enjoy women’s sports, I value fairness, I care about my girls and their future, and it is fundamentally unfair to have women and men playing sports against one another.

Does anyone think that the Women’s March Madness Tournament, culminating in a battle for the ages between the Caitlyn Clark-led Hawkeyes and the incredible depth chart of the LSU Tigers, would have been improved by the addition of a male college athlete? In any competitive sport, the success of one means the failure of others. Crowding out of the top of the sport with biological males robs women of their opportunity to achieve greatness, and defeats the purpose of women’s sports entirely.

So how do we stop the nonsense? It starts with the truth: biological women can only fairly compete against other biological women, and biological men can only fairly compete against biological men. Whether or not we consider transgender women to be women in other legal or social aspects is a conversation for another day: what I know is we can’t be destroying women’s sports to satisfy progressive activists’ latest fixation. If universities and schools aren’t going to do what’s right, we need legislation on the state side to protect women’s sports. The Fairness in Women’s Sports Act must pass, and I call on legislators from across New Jersey to vote for its passage.

I’ll keep fighting to protect women’s sports, because the truth and fairness matters — and so do opportunities for female athletes in New Jersey and across the country.

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Senator Michael L. Testa, Jr. is a State Senator representing New Jersey’s First Legislative District which includes Atlantic, Cape May, & Cumberland Counties. He is a dad, husband, and leader in fighting for the needs of New Jersey’s working families. 

March 8, 2023

By Senator Michael Testa, Jr.

With the early springtime weather comes budget season in Trenton, which means another year of elected Democrats rubber-stamping runaway spending and tax hikes in the Garden State. But it doesn’t have to be that way. I have been fighting Governor Murphy’s spending binge even before I flipped the First District state senate seat in 2019, and I’m leading the charge against Murphy’s runaway spending now.

With his new budget announced, I’d like to give you a look into the process: how Governor Murphy is burning piles of money, including give-aways that would make most working New Jerseyans’ jaws drop — and how we can fight it.

Among countless expensive line-items, Governor Murphy’s budget includes a needless $300 million give-away to Rutgers University athletics — an average cost to New Jersey households of two tickets to a Scarlet Knights game.

But big-dollar giveaways for growing academic bureaucracies aren’t the only cost New Jersey households will have to pay if Murphy’s budget is passed; the Governor proposes massive give-aways to criminals as well. Murphy and state Democrats propose handing over $120 million in taxpayer funds to the so-called “Excluded New Jerseyans Fund,” granting up to $4,000 in cash to illegal immigrants and convicted felons leaving prisonl. What would your household do with that kind of money?

The budget also includes a blank check for new “equity” programs, which will cost hundreds of millions of dollars, including one to provide Medicaid benefits to the families of illegal immigrants, and another $6 million to extend welfare to drug dealers. In New Jersey, “Murphy’s Law” seems to be: cash give-aways for criminals and rule-breakers, subsidized by law-abiding taxpayers.

Those of us who have been paying attention know that this latest spending binge has been Phil Murphy’s motto all along: spend, spend, spend. This and other ridiculous programs represent months of groceries or gas for you and your family — going to drug dealers and illegal immigrants instead.

Some in New Jersey have accepted this new normal of record-breaking budgets and back-breaking tax burdens. Remember, we were told by Gov. Murphy in 2021 that “if taxes are your issue, then New Jersey’s probably not your state.”

But while today’s proposed state budget teeters at $50.6 billion, as recently as 2017 the budget was as low as $34.8 billion under the leadership of Republican Gov. Chris Christie. That’s nearly a fifty percent increase in just six years, not counting the state’s obligation on nearly five billion dollars borrowed to respond to Covid-19, nearly five times as much as Illinois, our nation’s financial basket case. Blowing the Land of Lincoln out of the water in financial mismanagement is not the type of record we want to be breaking.

This level of spending means money for mortgage payments, for your kids’ schooling, or for your parents’ medicine taken from your pockets. This debt will continue to cost us far after Gov. Murphy leaves the Governor’s mansion.

Fighting this abuse of taxpayers is why I ran for office in the first place, and it’s what drives me to fight for my constituents and our state. The people I represent want to stay here, but increasingly, they simply can’t afford to.

Spend, spend, spend — all in the name of “stronger and fairer,” while those not in Gov. Murphy’s club get weaker and poorer. Working New Jersey families care about taxes, spending, and runaway inflation that has yet to slow down enough for us to take a breath. With state and federal spending reaching new heights, and with no signs of stopping, we need to stop and think of the future before inflation prices more people out of the American Dream.

Do we really want to live in a New Jersey where only the wealthy elite like Gov. Murphy can thrive, and working people in the middle are forced to subsidize drug dealers and people here illegally?

Of course we don’t. That’s why I’m out there leading the fight against this year’s budget — and it’s why you should join me and get involved as well. Republicans in the state legislature can’t do it alone. Assembly and senate elections are this year, meaning now is the time for New Jersey residents to get engaged, check their voter registration status, and tell Governor Murphy and the Trenton Democrats that enough is enough. It could start, simply, by sharing this piece with your friends and neighbors.

Let’s restore sanity to our state, and build something that we’re proud to hand over to our children. Join me in fighting for New Jersey’s future — let’s start here.

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Senator Michael L. Testa, Jr. is a State Senator representing New Jersey’s First Legislative District which includes Atlantic, Cape May, & Cumberland Counties. He is a dad, husband, and leader in fighting for the needs of New Jersey’s working families. 

By Senator Michael Testa, Jr.

Just when we thought the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA) could not possibly get any worse, they proved all of us wrong again at their most recent “convention” in Atlantic City last month. Instead of focusing on the things that matter to parents and their children, such as recouping grave learning losses due to draconian shutdowns of our schools, the NJEA felt it was worthwhile to host a drag queen story hour and invited irrelevant social justice warriors Nikole Hannah Jones and David Hogg to speak.

Has the NJEA lost their collective minds? What are their real priorities?

While this is anything but good news for our families, it is not shocking. The NJEA talks a big game about standing up for our students but, in the end, we know what they are all about. The NJEA is just another slush fund designed to push a radical agenda on our children and their families.

Despite what you hear from Democrats in Trenton, New Jersey’s education system is facing real, systemic problems. Most notably, century high learning losses and historically low-test scores—both of which have been exacerbated by unnecessary COVID lockdowns.

Imagine this – while your child was off from school for two days or sometimes more in other districts for, “convention week,” their teachers were at a “LGBTQIA+ banned books drag queen story hour” instead of sharpening their tools to become even better at their jobs to teach your child. The NJEA described the story hour as a way for educators to “explore and express their intersectional identities.”

Just when you think it could not reach any higher levels of insanity – it does. Performers for Drag Queen Entertainment read attendees several books including “And Tango Makes Three,” a story of two male penguins who have a baby penguin together, and “Prince & Knight,” a picture book about a prince and knight who fall in love. The drag queens also read “I am Jazz,” a story about a two-year-old who realizes she is a transgender female.

Read more about the NJEA’s convention “activities” here.

Parents and many teachers on the frontlines are rightly upset about the stream of far-left indoctrination from activist educators which seek to misguide our students instead of preparing them for success in the real world. The reality is, they should be! What is happening at the very top of the NJEA is lunacy and does not reflect the views of many in their membership ranks.

As the father of three beautiful children and the husband of an educator, I fundamentally believe our schools need to get back to the basics. Our students need to be learning how to read at a high level, excel in math, learning about our history, both good and bad, and science. These indoctrination events at a teacher’s convention completely miss the mark and are a slap in the face to working families.

According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the “nation’s report card,” math scores for fourth- and eighth-graders saw the largest decrease ever and reading scores dropped to levels not seen since 1992.

Where is the sense of urgency from our union “leaders” that should be working to revert those daunting statistics?

Remember when the NJEA called us “extreme” for believing we deserve to have a seat at the table when it comes to when, how, and what our kids are taught? It’s time for the NJEA to take a hard look in the mirror and come to grips with the fact that they work for parents and students, not the other way around.

I am committed to helping ensure that my colleagues and I in Trenton work together to make life better for our students who desperately need it. Time will tell, but I’m not prepared to say “leadership” at the NJEA is prepared to do the same.

Are you ready to work together and fight back?

Senator Michael L. Testa, Jr. is a State Senator representing New Jersey’s First Legislative District which includes Atlantic, Cape May, & Cumberland Counties. He also serves as Chairman of the Cumberland County Regular Republican Organization.