A leading voice for government accountability issued a direct challenge to Governor Rebecca ‘Mikie’ Sherrill to repair the extensive damage done to public transparency by the administration of outgoing Governor Phil Murphy.
C.J. Griffin, a lawyer who has dedicated her practice to fighting for government transparency and press freedom, presented a meticulous indictment of Murphy’s eight-year record.
Her assessment stands in stark contrast to the governor’s own triumphant exit narrative, threatening to stain what he has called the “most progressive administration” in state history.
“When Phil Murphy took office in 2018, I had a glimmer of hope,” Griffin said, recalling a swift settlement of a key lawsuit early in his term. “But just a few months later, it became clear that Murphy would follow in [Chris] Christie’s footsteps.”
Griffin’s catalog of failures is specific and extensive. She cited a years-long legal battle over records related to a deadly adenovirus outbreak at a Wanaque nursing home, a case a judge called a “poster child for how not to handle” a public records request.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, she said state agencies repeatedly invoked emergency powers to deny access to records on nursing home deaths, protective gear contracts, task force deliberations, and hospital capacity data.
“Those fights were frustrating but familiar,” Griffin said. “But Murphy has been far worse on transparency. His Administration didn’t just deny OPRA requests; he dismantled OPRA itself.”
Griffin identified the 2024 overhaul of the Open Public Records Act, signed by Murphy despite opposition from more than 80% of the public in a Farleigh Dickinson University Poll, as the cornerstone of this dismantling. The law gutted a key provision that guaranteed legal fees to residents who successfully sued for wrongfully withheld records. Griffin argues this change has effectively priced the public and the press out of the court system, allowing denials to stand unchallenged.
“Murphy recently claimed that he’s ‘done more for transparency than any administration in the history of the state,’” Griffin said. “In reality, after gutting key campaign finance laws and eliminating independent public notice requirements… no modern governor has done more to undermine transparency and accountability.”
The critique arrives as Sherrill prepares to take office with a mandate that polls suggest is partly built on concern over ethics in government. A recent Quinnipiac University poll found 16% of likely voters cited “ethics in government” as their most important issue, second only to taxes, and these voters broke overwhelmingly for Sherrill.
Murphy, in a lengthy exit interview, defended his record broadly and the OPRA changes specifically, framing them as inevitable political compromise. “I didn’t run for governor to revise OPRA,” Murphy said. “That was not a passion of mine… you end up doing things that — ‘Gosh, that wasn’t a top 10 priority of mine, but I know it is for someone else’ — that’s making the sausage, as they say.”
Griffin rejected this analogy with blunt force. “Murphy threw our transparency rights into a meat grinder and then gaslit us when he insisted it would cause no harm,” she said. “Certain things, like the public’s right to know, are pillars of democracy, not bargaining chips.”
The challenge for Sherrill is clear: to govern a state where, as another FDU Poll found, 61% of residents believe politicians are corrupt, and where a key tool for uncovering corruption has been deliberately weakened. Griffin’s statement serves as both a warning and a roadmap, detailing a legacy of secrecy that the new governor, who campaigned on a promise of ethical reform, must now confront.