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Good Thursday morning!
Finally, New Jersey Republicans can run for office without the specter of Donald Trump haunting them. Or can they?
Conservative activist Seth Grossman’s decision to run for state Senate in the 2nd Legislative District means the kind of hard right politics Trump embraced anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, and often racist will still be a force in the Republican contest there.
N.J. town strikes agreement with feds, will change zoning for houses of worship
Updated Mar 10, 2021;
Toms River has agreed to change its zoning rules for houses of worship in order to avoid litigation with the U.S. Department of Justice, which argues amendments to the municipality’s code in recent years violate federal law by severely restricting where religious institutions can locate.
The decision comes amidst of growth of the Orthodox Jewish population in the town.
On Tuesday night, the town council voted 6-1 to approve a consent decree with the Justice Department that would resolve a lawsuit brought by the federal government alleging changes to the township’s religious land use rules in 2009 and 2017 failed to comply with the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA).