Historic Move by Baltimore to Safeguard its Water System

Posted on by Mary Pat Gallagher

New Jersey is not the only place where communities are struggling to keep essential public water resources out of private hands.

On August 6, the Baltimore City Council unanimously approved a resolution, Bill 18-0271, to amend the city charter to prohibit the sale or lease of its water system. The amendment would declare the “inalienability” of sewer and water-supply systems and exempt those systems, and their “operations and uses” from charter provisions that otherwise authorize the “grant of franchises or rights relating to the operation or use of public property.”

Continue reading Historic Move by Baltimore to Safeguard its Water System

TAX BILL’S LONG-TERM HARM OVERSHADOWS SALT IMPACT

Posted on by Mary Pat Gallagher

Last year’s major federal tax bill –the so-called Tax Cut and Jobs Act— has left many in New Jersey very angry and concerned. And for good reason, even though other aspects of the bill will likely do far more serious and long-term damage, here and elsewhere.

Attention has focused on that part of the legislation with the most obvious detrimental impact on the state and its residents –a newly imposed $10,000 limit on the deduction for state and local taxes.

Continue reading TAX BILL’S LONG-TERM HARM OVERSHADOWS SALT IMPACT

ACA ENROLLMENT FALLS IN NEW JERSEY, NEW LAWS SHOULD HELP

Posted on by Mary Pat Gallagher

Efforts by the Trump Administration and the GOP majority in Washington to undermine the Affordable Care Act (ACA), aka “Obamacare,” are, unfortunately, having an impact that is driving down the number of people with individual health insurance policies in New Jersey.

According to a June 20 press release from the NJ Department of Banking & Insurance, health insurance enrollment was down more than 10 per cent for the first quarter of 2018, compared to a year earlier. The total number of state residents signed up for individual (non-employer, non-government) health plans was 328,761, down from 368,619 for the first quarter of 2017.

In other words, almost 40,000 fewer people have health coverage. Continue reading ACA ENROLLMENT FALLS IN NEW JERSEY, NEW LAWS SHOULD HELP

CHAIR OF PURGED BOARD DECRIES GUTTING OF PRO-CONSUMER AGENCY

Posted on by Mary Pat Gallagher

As Director of the Fair Financial Services Project of Texas Appleseed, a sister organization and part of our collaborative network, Ann Baddour helps bring low-income and immigrant consumers into the financial mainstream, combating problems such as predatory lending. For the past four years, she has also been a member of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Consumer Advisory Board, or CAB, and since last October, has served as CAB chairwoman.

On June 6, Baddour and the rest of the 25-member volunteer board were removed, two days after 11 of them held a press conference, criticizing the cancellations of CAB meetings and apparent efforts to sideline the Board since a Trump appointee took over the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, or CFPB.

Read what she has to say about it in a New York Times op-ed published on June 7, entitled “Why Did the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Fire Us?”

According to Baddour, the CFPB, “established to put the financial well-being of families ahead of the interests of lobbyists and Wall Street,” is being “gutted.”

“This sudden move and other recent changes at the bureau, including efforts to loosen rules intended to protect families and businesses, raise the worrisome prospect that the country will once again end up on a path to foreclosed homes, market failures and taxpayer bailouts,” wrote Baddour.  Continue reading CHAIR OF PURGED BOARD DECRIES GUTTING OF PRO-CONSUMER AGENCY

MURPHY SIGNS LAW TO END SURPRISE MEDICAL BILLS

Posted on by Mary Pat Gallagher

Governor Phil Murphy today signed into law landmark legislation that will help keep health care affordable for New Jersey residents by protecting them from surprise medical bills for out-of-network health care.

At least with state-regulated health insurance  plans covered by the plan, consumers will no longer have to pay any more than they would for in-network care unless they are informed of those added costs in advance and consent to pay them.  And added out-of-network charges could never be imposed for receiving needed medical care in an emergency situation. Consumers would remain free to obtain care from out-of-network providers but those bills would no longer come as a surprise.

Other insurance plans that fall under federal law and are thus not subject to regulation by the state, will be able to opt into the law, which takes effect 90 days from today.

The legislation, A-2039, is known as the Out-of-Network Consumer Protection, Transparency, Cost Containment and Accountability Act, and the name aptly describes what it does.

For more detail, read my earlier blog posts.  HERE and HERE.

Continue reading MURPHY SIGNS LAW TO END SURPRISE MEDICAL BILLS

DEMAND DNA TEST TO PREVENT POSSIBLE WRONGFUL EXECUTION

Posted on by Mary Pat Gallagher

Until a few days ago, I had never heard of Kevin Cooper, who has been on California’s death row for more than 30 years, after being convicted of a quadruple homicide in 2003 that he apparently did not commit.

Not until I read Nicholas Kristof’s article in the May 20 New York Times, entitled “Was Kevin Cooper Framed for Murder?”

Kristof, whose opinion pieces typically concern international human rights abuses, lays out a convincing case that Cooper was, in fact,  framed.

Continue reading DEMAND DNA TEST TO PREVENT POSSIBLE WRONGFUL EXECUTION

BILL WOULD END SECRET SEX HARASS SETTLEMENTS, PRESERVE RIGHT TO SUE FOR DISCRIMINATION

Posted on by Mary Pat Gallagher

Last month, Governor Phil Murphy signed into law legislation meant to make sure that how much you are paid at work does not depend on your gender, race, age, religion or any other personal characteristic covered by NJ’s broad anti-discrimination law.

Another important bill also intended to protect equality in the workplace, is now moving through the Legislature and was voted out of the Senate Labor Committee on March 5 and the Assembly Labor Committee on May 10.

The legislation, S-121/A-1242, would prevent companies from requiring that workers or job applicants agree up front to relinquish their right to sue for discrimination or harassment or any other substantive or procedural right related to a claim for discrimination in order to keep their jobs or get hired in the first place. It would apply also to retaliation claims—where an employer fired or took some other adverse action against someone for complaining of discriminatory conduct.

In addition, the bill would outlaw the secret settlement of discrimination, harassment and retaliation claims, also referred to as “non-disclosure agreements, the sort repeatedly used by movie producer Harvey Weinstein when he paid off his accusers, allowing him to keep sexually assaulting and harassing women for decades.

Continue reading BILL WOULD END SECRET SEX HARASS SETTLEMENTS, PRESERVE RIGHT TO SUE FOR DISCRIMINATION

MAJOR STEP FORWARD IN EFFORT TO END SURPRISE MEDICAL BILLS

Posted on by Mary Pat Gallagher

A bill that will protect consumers from surprise medical bills took a crucial step toward passage on April 5 when it won narrow approval from the Senate Commerce Committee, by a 3-2 vote.

That same day, S-485/A-2039, also known as the Out-of-Network Consumer Protection, Transparency, Cost Containment and Accountability Act, also made it past the Senate Budget Committee (7-3) and the Assembly Appropriations Committee (7-2).

The Senate Commerce vote was regarded as the most uncertain of the three because earlier versions of the bill had stalled in that committee in the prior two legislative sessions.

The bill had already been reported out of the Assembly Financial Institutions and Insurance Committee on March 5, so it is now cleared for votes in both houses.

It is posted for an Assembly floor vote this coming Thursday, April 12, and it is hoped that when the list of bills is posted for the full Senate session that same day, it will also be listed there.

The legislation, most centrally, holds consumers harmless from having to pay more than the in-network rate when they receive services from an out-of-network health provider in an emergency situation or through inadvertence. For non-emergency care, consumers need not pay higher out-of-network rates unless they are informed in advance of the provider’s out-of-network status and what that provider will charge and they agree to those services and charges.

Continue reading MAJOR STEP FORWARD IN EFFORT TO END SURPRISE MEDICAL BILLS

LANDMARK EQUAL PAY BILL AWAITS SIGNATURE

Posted on by Mary Pat Gallagher

The State of New Jersey is poised to enact a law that will provide the strongest equal pay protections in the U.S., on either the state or federal level.

The legislation, S-104, goes further than the 2009 Lilly Ledbetter Act, a federal law, which overturned federal court precedent limiting the time in which women could sue over discriminatory pay practices and how much they could recover if they won.

Among other protections that exceed those in the federal, law, the NJ legislation allows recovery of up to six years of back pay, provides for treble damages and prohibits employers from requiring existing workers or new hires to waive their legal rights as a condition of employment. It specifically bars any waiver of the two-year time limit for filing suit. (A 2014 state appellate court decision, Rodriguez v. Raymours Furniture, had found such a waiver, one that shortened the time to sue to only six months, was enforceable but the state Supreme Court reversed in 2016.)

The proposed law applies not just to female employees but to any class of employees shielded by the broad scope of NJ’s Law Against Discrimination, or LAD. The LAD’s 17 protected categories include race, color, national origin, disability, age, affectional/sexual orientation, military status and genetic information.

Continue reading LANDMARK EQUAL PAY BILL AWAITS SIGNATURE

New Study Assails Secrecy Surrounding Amazon Headquarters Bids

Posted on by Mary Pat Gallagher

We all know that Newark is one of the 20 finalists in the running to be selected as the location for Amazon’s second headquarters and that, to lure the company, the state and city are offering up to $7 billion in tax credits and other incentives.

The reason we know that much is because New Jersey and Newark both passed legislation on the subject, exposing the process to public scrutiny.  But the bid Newark submitted to Amazon has not been disclosed. And though huge amounts of public resources are also involved in the bids of the most of the other 19 contenders, including  Chicago Dallas, Miami, and New York City, even less is known about most of those other bids.

The troubling secrecy surrounding the high stakes process is the subject of a study released on April 3 by Good Jobs First, a non-profit that focuses on corporate accountability. The title encapsulates the important issues at stake: “Public Auction, Private Dealings: Will Amazon’s HQ2 Veer to Secrecy Create a Missed Opportunity for Inclusive, Accountable Development?”

Continue reading New Study Assails Secrecy Surrounding Amazon Headquarters Bids