By Samantha Marcus | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

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Democratic Gov.-elect Phil Murphy's road to the Statehouse was paved with progressive promises. He's vowed to strengthen New Jersey's gun laws, he's backed a $15 an hour minimum wage and he wants to make community college tuition-free for all New Jerseyans.

Some, like fully funding government worker pensions, will take time, he said, while he could make good on others, like legalizing marijuana, within his first 100 days in office.

Now that he's clinched the office in a big win over Republican Kim Guadagno, here's a reminder of Murphy's campaign promises.

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1. Fully fund schools

Throughout the campaign, Murphy criticized Gov. Chris Christie's administration for underfunding education by nearly $9 billion over the past eight years. He's vowed to fully fund the school funding formula, which will cost about $1 billion more per year.

He's proposed about $1.3 billion in tax increases on the wealthy, marijuana sales and corporations to help pay for that and other initiatives.

Murphy told the Associated Press he wants this funding in place "immediately." That likely means he plans to include the additional funding in the budget he'll introduce in February.

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2. Legalize marijuana

The governor-elect said he will sign legislation to legalize pot when it hits his desk.

He already has a plan to tax the sale of marijuana, which his campaign estimates will generate about $300 million for the state's coffers each year. But Murphy said that's not the reason to legalize marijuana.

Murphy has said he sees legalization as a solution to a social injustice and the imbalance in incarceration and conviction rates.

"If it doesn't pass the social justice test, you can't talk about revenue implications, and the fact of the matter is that we have the widest white-nonwhite gap of persons incarcerated in New Jersey," he said.

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3. Fully fund pensions

Murphy wants to meet or beat Christie's plan to fully fund government worker pensions. The state is currently contributing half of what's recommended by actuaries. Christie's plan would bump that to 60 percent next year and continue increasing the contribution by one-tenth of what's recommended until reaching the full payment, about $6.3 billion, in 2023.

To put that in perspective, this year's budget is $34.7 billion.

"At a minimum, we'll continue the progress that's being made right now," Murphy said.

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4. Free community college

In September, Murphy made a promise to offer tuition-free community college to New Jersey students. The offer would extend only to associate's degrees, but it would be open to all New Jerseyans, including those just leaving high school or looking for a career change.

Free community college programs in other states are more or less restrictive. Only first-time college students are eligible in New York, which also put in place income limits.

His campaign estimates this initiative could cost about $200 million a year.

"This won't be as costly as many critics might have you believe," Murphy said.

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5. Raise the minimum wage

Murphy has gotten behind the $15 per hour movement.

Come Jan. 1, New Jersey's minimum wage will be $8.60 an hour, a 16-cent bump from this year. The minimum wage is adjusted annually based on changes in the consumer price index.

Last year, Democrats who control the Legislature pushed through a $15 an hour bill that Christie ultimately vetoed. That proposal would have gradually increased the minimum wage over several years, and additional increases would have been based on increases in the consumer price index.

Murphy has likewise said he would gradually raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, "so that those who want to work can support their family and ensure that no one who works full time in 2017 lives in poverty," according to his campaign website.

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Governor-elect Phil Murphy speaks at the NJEA Convention at the Atlantic City Convention Center, Friday, Nov. 10, 2017. (Lori M. Nichols | For NJ.com)

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6. Ending PARCC as a graduation requirement

Within a few years, students will have to pass PARCC's math and English exams to graduate from high school. Murphy has promised to eliminate both the PARCC exam and the requirement that students pass any standardized test at all to graduate.

Opponents of PARCC say the test is too difficult, and that statewide, scores on PARCC tests are lower than the state's previous standardized test. They also argue preparation for the exam saps too much time from classroom instruction.

"Good teachers and good students can have bad test days. Too much emphasis is being put on a single test, as opposed to weighing a student's progress through years of instruction," his website says.

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7. Protect 'Dreamers'

Guadagno seized on Murphy's commitment to protect "Dreamers," undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. illegally as children, accusing him of being soft on crime.

Murphy said he'd consider making New Jersey a "sanctuary state" to protect those Dreamers from deportation.

Murphy hasn't explained what a sanctuary state might look like. But you might expect him to limit his administration's cooperation with federal immigration authorities.

In sanctuary cities, that means declining to hold undocumented immigrants who have been arrested by local officials under detainer requests by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

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8. Restore millionaires tax

Many of Murphy's campaign promises will require new state revenue, and this is one big way to get it. Instituting a new marginal tax rate on income over $1 million could bring in about $600 million a year.

Democrats have wanted this 10.75 percent top tax rate restored since is was allowed to sunset after Gov. Jon Corzine left office, but Christie vetoed their efforts. In 2010, he struck the millionaires tax within two minutes of the bill hitting his desk.

Since its expiration, the tax rate has topped out at 8.97 percent on income over $500,000.

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9. Restore family planning funding

Murphy denounced Christie's cuts to funding for family planning services in New Jersey since 2010 and pledged his support for Planned Parenthood.

Christie in 2010 slashed $7.5 million in funding for these clinics, saying the state couldn't afford it. He repeated that veto year after year as Democrats attempted to restore the funding.

Murphy said for him, it's a top priority.

"Women are dying in this state thanks to the cuts that the governor and the lieutenant governor have endorsed now for seven-and-a-half years," Murphy said. "This is life and death. This is really life and death. They put a lot of women at stake."

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A group of women show their support for Phil Murphy outside the school. Accompanied by his family Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Murphy votes at the Fairview School. Tuesday November 7, 2017. Middletown, NJ. (Aristide Economopoulos | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)

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10. Divest from hedge funds

Investments in hedge funds have been a point of disagreement on the State Investment Council, the body that oversees New Jersey's $76 billion public pension fund. At the urging of labor representatives, the board slashed its investments in hedge funds by more than half, from about 12.5 percent of the fund to 6 percent. Those labor members said the investments' costly fee and bonus structure wasn't paying off.

The share of investments in alternatives — for which the fund paid $400 million in management fees and $328.4 million in performance bonuses in 2015 – fell from about a third of the fund to a quarter.

Murphy, a former Wall Street banking executive, said he will divest the pension fund altogether from hedge funds and private equity.

"We should have expected far higher returns in exchange for these fees, but the alternative investment returns were only average. For instance, over the past five years, our hedge fund investments generated returns that were nearly 60 percent below the S&P," Murphy wrote in an op-ed. "This is a complete violation of the principle 'you get what you pay for.' The big winners were the hedge funds and private equity managers whom we handsomely paid."

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11. Close tax loopholes

Murphy wants to close two loopholes that will bring in more taxes from corporations and the performance fees earned by private equity and hedge fund managers.

The first, called combined reporting, would capture profits that multi-state corporation are now able to shift to states with no or lower corporate income taxes.

By requiring "combined reporting," New Jersey would treat related companies, like parent companies and subsidiaries, as one and grab its share of the income based on the whole corporation's activity in the Garden State.

The nonpartisan Office of Legislative Services has estimate this could bring in an additional $110 million to $290 million per year.

Those performance fees and bonuses Murphy wants to tax are referred to as carried interest. There's a bill in the Legislature to close this loophole, but only if Connecticut, New York and Massachusetts enact identical tax measures.

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12. Reverse Christie on guns

The governor-elect vowed to strengthen New Jersey's gun laws across the board, including banning .50 caliber rifles, requiring more training to get a gun license, outlawing bump stocks and toughening background checks.

He's said he will sign every piece of gun legislation that Christie has vetoed. That includes a bill that would have required all gun retailers to stock at least one personalized smart gun model.

"We believe we can make them stronger," Murphy said at a news conference in Trenton. "Even if we save one life, it would be worth it."

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Michael Mancuso

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13. Mandate earned sick leave

A number of New Jersey towns have put in place their own requirements, but there's no state-level law guaranteeing private-sector workers paid sick leave.

Murphy said he would back a state law mandating earned sick leave for private-sector workers, which has stalled in the Legislature, where lawmakers disagree whether a state law should pre-empt local ordinances.

Under one bill, employees would accrue one hour of paid sick time for every 30 hours worked.

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14. Fight gender pay discrimination

Earlier this year, the Legislature failed to override Christie's veto of legislation that would have enhanced legal remedies for gender-based pay discrimination that the governor said departed from established law and would have made New Jersey an outlier.

The legislation would have prohibited an employer from paying women less for "substantially similar" work, allowed employees to receive unlimited back pay from a wage discrimination action and allowed employees who prevailed in claims to collect tripled damages.

Another provision would have required that businesses contracting with the state file with the state government the gender, race, job title and compensation of every employee associated with that contract.

Yet another bill he vetoed would have prohibited employers from asking prospective employees about their salary history.

Murphy said he supports moves to increase penalties for wage discrimination, protect employees who discuss compensation from retaliation and the ban on asking an applicant's salary history.

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15. Raise the Earned Income Tax Credit

Since 2015, New Jersey lawmakers have raised the state's Earned Income Tax Credit for the working poor twice: first, from 20 percent to 30 percent, as part of the fiscal year 2016 budget, and then from 30 percent to 35 percent as part of a deal to raise the gasoline tax.

Each increase is said to put about $200 back in the pockets of about 600,000 low-income New Jerseyans.

Murphy says he wants to raise the popular tax credit for the working poor to 40 percent of the federal level.

Eligibility depends on income and number of qualifying children. The income limit is about $14,800 for a single, childless adult, and $53,000 for a married couple with three or more children.

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16. Rejoin the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative

Just a year after taking office, Christie pulled New Jersey out of the cap-and-trade program, saying it was a tax on business that was ineffective in reducing greenhouses gas emissions.

Murphy said one of his first acts as governor will be rejoining the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.

He's vowed also to set a goal to reach a 100 percent clean energy economy by 2050.

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17. Boost voter participation

Democratic lawmakers will have the governor-elect's support in their plans to make voter registration automatic upon applying for a driver's license, allow online voter registration expand early voting, according to his campaign website.

Christie vetoed the "Democracy Act," a Democratic-backed effort to boost voter registration and participation in 2015.

Murphy says he, too, wants automatic voter registration, online voter registration and same-day voter registration. He also wants 17-year-olds who will be 18 by the general election to be able to vote in the primary.

"New Jersey citizens who turn 18 after the primary but before the general election are put in an unfair position where they have to vote for the candidates on the ballot but did not have a say in choosing who is on the ballot," according to his website.

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18. Fight addiction

Battling addiction and the stigma around it have been focus of Christie's final year in office. Murphy seems intent on continuing that legacy, with promises to increase the number of drug treatment beds, require insurers to cover medication-assisted treatment for opioid addiction, limit initial opioid prescriptions to seven days, fund a public-awareness campaign and lower the cost of Narcan, the life-saving nasal spray used to reverse the effects of an opioid overdose.

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19. A better N.J. economy

A constant theme of Murphy's campaign was to say he would do better at revving up New Jersey's economy than the Christie/Guadagno administration.

Murphy wants to establish a state bank that would be owned by the taxpayers and would give tax money to community banks to hand out loans to small businesses and students, with the profit returning to the state budget. Critics warned that such a bank could put taxpayers at risk.

Murphy also vows to bring more technology companies to the state.

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Samantha Marcus may be reached at smarcus@njadvancemedia.com . Follow her on Twitter @samanthamarcus. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.