Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill has released a detailed financial disclosure and stopped trading individual stocks, steps beyond what laws require for members of Congress or governors, but stopped short of saying that she’ll require top members of her administration follow her lead.
When asked on Friday whether she plans to require members of her cabinet to also sell their individual stocks, Sherrill said her administration’s officials will follow New Jersey’s existing ethics laws and consider ways to improve the policies.
“We’ve done a review of laws here in New Jersey, which are far stronger than the laws in Congress, so we intend to hold people accountable to those laws,” Sherrill said. “No self-dealing, no financial benefit that you accrue from your position, no outside work that you do that impacts any appearance of impropriety for the job you’re doing.”
New Jersey state law — including the State’s Conflicts of Interest Law, the Uniform Ethics Code, the State Ethics Commission regulations, and supplemental codes of ethics for various departments — requires executive branch officials to recuse themselves from matters in which they have a financial interest.
“As a military veteran and lifelong public servant, Gov.-elect Sherrill believes public service is a privilege and will ensure all members of her administration adhere to the highest ethical conduct,” said Sherrill spokesperson Sean Higgins. “She is committed to strengthening the public’s confidence in state government and keeping these important financial disclosure requirements, which ensure that state officials act for the public’s good and not for any self-interests.”
With the use of executive orders, Sherrill possesses the authority to institute a broad array of ethics requirements for executive branch officials.
Sherrill sold all of her individual stocks in 2020, instead replacing them with exchange-traded funds. During her campaign this year, Sherrill released the exact totals of her finances.
On Friday, Sherrill spoke to hundreds of members of her transition advisory teams in East Brunswick.
