in a rare political move New Jersey's top Democratic lawmakers are breaking with the Murphy Administration assembly speaker Craig Coughlin and Senate President Nick scutari are joining the course of Republicans in criticizing the state's approach to Offshore wind projects and new rules around gender identity in public schools there are surprising comments come at a time when so-called culture War topics are taking center stage in towns across the state and as all 120 legislators are on the ballot this fall senior political correspondent David Cruz reports through much of the first six years of the Murphy Administration Democrats in the legislature have supported and enabled the governor's Progressive agenda with few exceptions including issues like gender and equity and offshore wind but now as they approach elections in the fall Democrats are finding through internal polling or just simply while out there campaigning that the policies they backed are now getting pushed back from some of the state's more conservative voters Republicans know this I think this Administration has taken a hard left and I think the Democrat Party and the leaders in both houses have supported that hard left Senator Buco is pushing a bill to overturn the recent State Board of Ed updates to policies on equity which included updates to the language that substitutes gender identity for gender and favors the term Equity over equality no matter that the rules such as they are don't require local districts to do anything like allowing boys to play on girls sports teams the contentious vote and reaction to it prompted a rare response from the assembly speaker and Senate President though the State Board of Education sets guidelines on curriculum says the joint statement it is our local communities through their elected Boards of Education that decide on the final lesson plans I think they are absolutely concerned about the extreme agenda that has been coming out of the Murphy Administration and that they have been supportive of throughout this entire last term um before that um now all of a sudden we're in an election year and they're getting worried and they should be because parents are upset I think to some extent David the die has been cast since the close Governor's race in 2021 the takeaway that legislative leaders took from that election was be extra cautious on everything don't defend anything that's controversial even things that you've had a hand in only be Unapologetic about affordability including lately the potential cost of electrifying the state with the help of offshore wind as Democrats have been championing when the BPU opened the application window for more offshore wind projects recently the anti-wind crowd bellowed and for the second time in two weeks Democrats blinked kind of a second joint statement says quote there are still many unanswered questions about the economic impact these projects will have on rate payers as well as potential impacts on one of our state's largest economic drivers tourism at the shore see what they did there long-time environmental activist Jeff Tittle says Democrats are trying to play Both Sides to their own potential detriment And when they see them being wishy-washy or Cowtown to special interest they get turned off and this is going to be an off-year election and that means that it's about the base coming out neither the speaker nor the Senate President was available to talk to us about this today so it's tough to say what motivated their recent statements maybe it's pushback against the governor who's not on the ballot in the fall and maybe it's Republican footsteps which they're just now start to hear more clearly I'm David Cruz NJ Spotlight news [Music] [Music]