Who wins in fight against Trump and 3D guns? Phil Murphy's liberal brand

Charles Stile | NorthJersey

Show Caption Hide Caption N.J. Attorney General Gurbir Grewal's press conference on environmental enforcement NJ Attorney General reacts to President Trump's tweet about "ghost guns" produced on 3D-printers

New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal paused several times Wednesday during a news conference on a Newark street corner, unable to compete with the drone of passenger jets descending on the airport just a few miles away.

Yet Grewal and Gov. Phil Murphy's administration got their meta-message across loud and clear.

And it is this: This administration is ushering in a new era of hard-nosed progressive activism. Gun rights activists doted on by Gov. Chris Christie do not have a friend in Murphy. Nor do polluters who evaded legal crackdowns in Christie's eight-year term.

“Today is just the beginning — we are going to hold polluters accountable, no matter how big, no matter how powerful, no matter how long they’ve been getting away with it,'' Grewal said as he announced plans to target New Jersey companies that have polluted property and groundwater.

And that announcement came after Grewal took a victory lap, of sorts, in his legal tangle with a Texas non-profit company that produces digital blueprints to let people make small, plastic guns on 3D printers.

A federal judge in Seattle temporarily blocked the Internet publication designs on Monday after Grewal and the attorneys general in seven other states and the District of Columbia argued that terrorists and other criminal groups could easily manufacture and distribute the unlicensed weapons and evade law enforcement.

"Who needs a gun without a serial number?'' Grewal said. "In my mind, it is somebody who wants to engage in something illegal or engage in some form of criminal activity. That's who these weapons appeal to most."

Despite his unwitting star turn last week as a target of crude, xenophobic humor from two radio show hosts, Grewal has become the Murphy administration's highly visible progressive enforcer, dueling with the Trump administration almost on a weekly basis and brandishing legal tools — polluters will be hit with civil suits, for example — that had gathered dust over the Christie years.

It's a made-to-order strategy for a liberal Democratic base that's demanding confrontation, rather than conciliation with the Trump administration. Trump is a useful, non-stop foil for a governor who is eager to build his liberal bona fides.

Murphy may be the hale and hearty back slapper, but his attorney general is throwing punches. Every time Trump speaks or acts, Grewal reacts, pushing back on the loss of state and local tax deductions or opposing the administration's plan for offshore oil drilling, It's also in tandem with Murphy's own executive orders aimed at Trump, such as his "zero tolerance" immigration policy, which led to the forced separation of children from their parents.

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Tilting at Trump, with Grewal leading the charge, is a boon for the developing Murphy brand. It helps expunge his Goldman Sachs pedigree and place him in a crowded national stable of Democratic Party progressives.

Yet Murphy is less than successful in implementing his progressive brand in the Statehouse, where he has met resistance from the more centrist, entrenched Democrats who control both houses of the Legislature.

His first budget was shaped by a classic liberal theory: Raise taxes mostly from the rich and redistribute the proceeds to long-neglected needs, like mass transit infrastructure and school spending, and offer free community college tuition.

But lawmakers agreed to only a token tax on millionaires, rebuffed Murphy's push to restore the sales tax to 7 percent, and forced him to agree to a corporate tax hike and a series of short-term gimmicks that he clearly disdained. Murphy did succeed in getting a $25 million down payment on his college tuition plan, and increased school funding, but in the fight to provide "sustained" and reliable revenues — the central focus of the budget battle and the one that almost brought the state to a brink of a shutdown — Murphy lost.

Murphy tried to spin the setback as a win, but it only served to underscore the limits of his power and the mandate of last year's 13-point election victory. And now, Senate President Stephen Sweeney, D-Gloucester, is vowing a major push for government benefit reform, which puts Murphy in a bind. It means pain for his public workers, his loyal base.

But will those losses matter much to his public image outside the confines of the Trenton political establishment? It's hard to see the average taxpayer keeping a scorecard of his battles in the Statehouse when Murphy and Grewal are channeling the public's discontent with Trump. For now, that has provided Murphy some cover.

In a recent interview with The Record and NorthJersey.com, Murphy said the constant clashing with the Trump administration has been a "not-so-nice surprise" about his new job.

"I spend — we spend — and Gurbir probably spends the most [time] battling Washington than I had anticipated,'' he said. "It has been a never-ending drumbeat."

And, at least for the moment, it's music to Murphy's ears.