Housing, baby bonds and reparations: Newark Mayor Ras Baraka lays out progressive overhaul for New Jersey

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka is charting out an unabashedly progressive lane in the primary to succeed Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy, eschewing what he described as incremental centrist politics.

During an hour-long event at Rowan University Tuesday night, Baraka hinted at what his gubernatorial agenda for New Jersey would look like: Affordable housing, reparations, baby bonds, desegregating schools and increasing taxes on corporations and the wealthy.

“We’re still in a moderate kind of slow-paced walk,” he said. “And we have not gone as far as we can go.”

The liberal rhetoric does not come as a surprise. As mayor of New Jersey’s largest city since 2014, Baraka has supported progressive causes, which he highlighted: A pilot program for universal basic income, creating a civilian complaint review board to investigate alleged police misconduct and allowing people as young as 16 to vote in school board elections.

When asked at the event if Newark should continue to be a "sanctuary city" — where local officials limit their cooperation with federal immigration authorities, a policy that the Murphy administration has also implemented — Baraka was unequivocal.

“I mean, that's like asking me: ‘Should America continue to be a democracy?” he said.

Baraka is not the only candidate running as a progressive in the gubernatorial race. Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop, who leads the state’s second-largest city, was the first Democratic candidate to announce his 2025 bid for governor and has also supported progressive positions like raising taxes on corporations to help fund public transportation.

Like Fulop, Baraka also supports reinstating what is known as the corporate business tax surcharge — an additional 2.5 percent levied on companies with over $1 million in profits, which expired at the end of last year — but also hinted at a broader overhaul of taxes and finances in the state. On Tuesday, Baraka suggested that corporate tax credits should be rerouted to families; called to reinstate the estate tax and reform the state’s mansion tax and send its proceeds to health care and transportation; and said the state should “remove loopholes” to make sure corporations don’t shift profits to other states to dodge New Jersey taxes.

Baraka did not outline specifics, but said the state could close its racial wealth gap "with at least talking about reparations."

And he expressed support for baby bonds, a proposal popularized by his mayoral predecessor, Sen. Cory Booker, in which the government sets aside funds for newborns for them to access when they become adults.

“How do we give these working-class families a break?” Baraka said. “Our thinking should be about that — not about the 20,000 rich people that live in New Jersey. But what about the millions of people that we need to actually stay in New Jersey?”

The state’s “number one” issue, Baraka said, is the lack of affordable housing. Murphy and legislative leaders are currently prioritizing an overhaul of its current system, but Baraka said that building more affordable housing should be more thoroughly enforced.

“Do not allow cities and counties to get away with not involving themselves in developing housing,” Baraka said. “They can't skirt their responsibility. They have to build it. And yes, we can incentivize it, but we must also demand it.”

Baraka also said he wanted to tackle racial inequities — policing and incarceration in the state, he said, was "uneven, costly and racist" — and schools remain too racially segregated, he said.

"We have more superintendents in New Jersey than we actually have mayors, which means we're actually paying extra for segregation," he said.

The gubernatorial race to replace Murphy is expected to be crowded. Former Senate President Steve Sweeney has also announced he is running for governor as a Democrat. Other Democrats considered to be candidates include Reps. Josh Gottheimer and Mikie Sherrill, teachers union leader Sean Spiller, Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin and Senate President Nick Scutari. On the Republican side, state Sen. Jon Bramnick has announced he's running, and 2021 GOP nominee Jack Ciattarelli and radio host Bill Spadea are expected to also enter the race.

But Baraka said his entrance to the race would leave an impression.

“In the end you mark my words: The state will never be the same,” he said. “Because Ras Baraka announced that he's running for governor in the state of New Jersey.”