TRENTON, N.J. – Ahead of Governor Murphy’s latest “major” reopening announcement on Monday, New Jersey Republican State Committee Executive Director Tom Szymanski issued a straightforward challenge to the governor: put up or shut up.
“Our message to Governor Murphy is a simple one: Re-open our state to 100% capacity and lift all your unilateral economic restrictions today, or don’t bother showing up to your self-promoting press conference,” said Szymanski. “Murphy has long been suffocating New Jersey’s economy with his arbitrary and unilateral economic restrictions, evidenced by New Jersey having the 7th worst unemployment rate in the nation, and the fact that one in three small businesses have closed for good. Anything short of a full re-opening will be a continued death sentence for thousands of small businesses.”
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Murphy is expected to make another “major” announcement on Monday, tweeting that the state’s “metrics” are making the announcement possible. The state’s rate of transmission dropped below the .50 mark this weekend for the first time in a year.
Last week’s hyped announcement from the Administration ended up being a false alarm with little in the way of actual reopening news leading to fresh criticism of Murphy’s continued arbitrary partial lockdown of the state economy.
“Governor Murphy has had no problem blindly following neighboring states on a myriad of oppressive actions over the past year, and yet when it comes to re-opening the economy and getting New Jerseyans back to work, he is unsurprisingly dragging his feet,” added Szymanski who noted that neighboring jurisdictions have already reopened or set dates to do so. “The long road to getting New Jersey back on track begins in earnest when we change Governors in November, but in the meantime Phil Murphy must end his dictatorial executive orders and get New Jersey small businesses back to work immediately.”
NJGOP messaging has taken a decidedly punchier turn in recent weeks since Szymanski – a native of the Jersey Shore who previously worked for Jason Lewis’s Minnesota Senate campaign – joined the organization as its executive director. The organization has been criticized in the past for not being aggressive enough in its attacks on Democrats.
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