Former NJ Senate President and Atlantic City Ally Stephen Sweeney Mounts Gubernatorial Bid
Stephen Sweeney, the longtime New Jersey lawmaker who was shockingly disappointed during the 2021 election to a political newcomer, is mounting a comeback with his eyes exercise set on the highest power inwards the Garden State.
Sweeney served as chairwoman of the New island of Jersey Senate from 2012 until January 2022 when he was forced come out of office after losing to state Sen. Edward VI Durr (R-Gloucester), a little-known motortruck number one wood who spent just $153 on his campaign. The shocking disconcert made national news.
Sweeney assured South island of Jersey voters that his political vocation wasn’t finished followers the defeat. This week, he proclaimed his 2025 gubernatorial movement to follow term-limited Gov. Phil Murphy (D).
Sometimes inward life, you human face setbacks,” Sweeney said inwards a societal media video. “But New Jerseyans have up, we dust ourselves off, we catch backrest to work, because that’s who we are. i will always lay New Jersey’s kids, working families, and seniors first. You cognize that’s who I’ll fighting for because that’s who I’ve ever fought for.”
Sweeney was also a god-fearing fighter for the Atlantic City gaming manufacture and regularly pushed for legislative issues that he believed were inward the topper interests of the beachfront casino town.
Atlantic City Advocate
During his time inward tell office, Sweeney championed measures designed to improve Atlantic Ocean City. He opposed efforts to thrust the casinos to move smoke-free on manufacture suggestions that such a regulation would weakened the gaming business sector and lead to massive layoffs.
In 2016, Sweeney authored the PILOT (Payment inward Lieu of Tax) bank note that withdrew prop taxes on the city’s gambling casino resorts in interchange for an yearly minimum collective defrayment of $120 million. The PILOT programme came after V casinos unsympathetic between 2014 and 2016 causing the remaining resorts to contend their assessed attribute revenue enhancement valuations.
Those effectual challenges suspended belongings tax payments and resulted in the local authorities existence unable to fund critical programs same its law and flaming departments.
The PILOT strategy calculates the casinos’ holding taxation responsibility based on one-year receipts gaming revenue (GGR). Before leaving office, Sweeney pushed legislation that reduced those payments by removing GGR from iGaming and online sports betting from the calculation. The casinos petitioned Sweeney that practically of the GGR generated via the cyberspace is shared with third-party operators the likes of DraftKings that experience little or no physical front in the beach town.
Atlantic County, which receives 13.5% of the PILOT money, fought backward against the bill. a via media was reached where the tell guaranteed the full amount of PILOT money the county would experience received if iGaming and online sportsbook revenue were to remain inwards the calculation.
Bipartisan History
Sweeney is a self-described temperate Democrat. His clip in Trenton included two-party moments, specifically when he and then-Gov. Chris Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie (R) teamed upward to occupy o'er Atlantic City’s governance.
In 2016, Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie and Sweeney initiated the state’s coup of Atlantic City to stabilize the neighborhood after the fivesome casinos closed. Teetering on the inch of failure because of shoo-in expenses, luxuriously taxes, and poor governance, the state’s ii to the highest degree powerful lawmakers said capital of New Jersey would steady the city over Little Phoebe years.
The takeover, however, remains inward localise more than septet years after it began. Murphy extended the state’s curb of Atlantic City in 2021 through and through at to the lowest degree 2025.
“We stock-still reckon they need help,” Sweeney said at the time of the extension. He added that “huge strides” had been made.
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