(TRENTON) – Assemblyman Raj Mukherji was appointed to serve on three critical Assembly committees dealing with various issues including New Jersey’s budget, labor and business and industry.
Mukherji (D-Hudson) is the only freshman legislator appointed to a seat on the Assembly Budget committee. He will also serve on the Commerce and Economic Development and Labor committees.
“Assemblyman Mukherji is a talented young legislator with unique and impressive professional accomplishments, which give me great confidence in the tremendous value he will add to these vital committees,” said Speaker Vincent Prieto (D-Bergen, Hudson). “His input on shaping the state budget, business climate, and growing the state’s workforce will be crucial as we move the agenda this session geared toward economic recovery and job creation.”
Assemblyman Mukherji has overseen numerous private sector and public sector budgets – ranging in size from a small business to a $500 million municipal budget – as a former technology CEO, founder and managing partner of a successful public affairs firm, Deputy Mayor of Jersey City, and Jersey City Housing Authority Chairman. Notwithstanding his entrepreneurial successes, he has lived through and understands the challenges being faced by New Jersey families in an austere economy. He supported himself through high school, college, grad school, and law school as an emancipated minor when economic circumstances forced his parents to return to their native India following his freshman year in high school. After suffering a pituitary tumor, stroke, and other ailments, Assemblyman Mukherji’s late father could no longer work as a result of his health but could not afford health coverage without employment.
Mukherji went on to sell the Internet consulting and software development company he had founded in his teens, enlist in the Marine Corps Reserve at 17 after September 11th and serve as a Sergeant in military intelligence, and cofound a public affairs firm at 19 that he grew into the state’s third largest lawyer-lobbying firm. With clients ranging from social justice causes to higher education institutions to government agencies to Fortune 500 corporations, he advocated to abolish the death penalty in New Jersey and replace it with life imprisonment without parole; lobbied for LGBT equality; worked with the NJEDA and the Business Action Center in successfully advocating for job creation and tax credit incentives; brokered or facilitated hundreds of millions of dollars in complex transactions; and secured millions in grants or appropriations for hospitals and nonprofit clients and advocated to expand Medicaid and charity care for the underprivileged, a cause especially dear to his heart due to his father’s narrative.
While serving as the youngest Chairman and Commissioner in the history of the Jersey City Housing Authority and as Deputy Mayor of Jersey City, Mukherji worked to catalyze redevelopment, economic development, and job creation in the state’s second largest city and improved the Housing Authority’s Section 8 management score from HUD to the five highest ratings in the agency’s history and the highest in the state among similarly-sized housing authorities.
“Growing New Jersey’s middle class and helping our working families is a top priority for me,” said Mukherji (D- Hudson). “Finding ways to get more New Jerseyans back to work will be the goal this session. I look forward to working with my colleagues to tackle the issues impeding job and business growth in the state.”
The Assembly Budget Committee reviews the Governor’s proposed budget plan and crafts the Legislature’s appropriations bill, the state’s annual fiscal spending law. The Assembly Commerce and Economic Development Committee is responsible for issues that affect urban enterprise zones, state and local redevelopment projects, corporate tax incentives, and business grant programs. The Labor Committee is the panel that oversees legislation regarding unemployment, workers’ compensation and disability benefits, workplace safety, employee training programs, family leave, and the minimum wage.
Mukherji represents the 33rd Legislative District includes the Hudson County municipalities of Union City, Hoboken, Weehawken, and parts of Jersey City.