New Jersey Lt. Gov. Sheila Oliver to lie in state in the capitol rotunda

TRENTON, N.J. — New Jersey Lt. Gov. Sheila Oliver, who died earlier this month after a brief hospital keep for an undisclosed sickness, will lie in state Thursday within the statehouse’s rotunda.

Oliver’s casket can be escorted by a New Jersey State Police honor guard and lie within the lately renovated rotunda till Thursday night.

Members of the general public can be permitted to pay their respects to Oliver, who was the primary Black girl elected to statewide workplace in New Jersey historical past, in addition to the primary Black girl to be Meeting speaker. She was 71.

Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy and first woman Tammy Murphy will attend a personal visitation with Oliver earlier than the rotunda opens to the general public.

Murphy ordered flags to be flown at half-staff for a month and commissioned a portrait of her that he has stated would dangle within the statehouse.

Along with serving as Murphy’s high deputy, stepping in whereas he was out of the state, she additionally oversaw the Division of Group Affairs, which coordinates state help to cities and cities and supervises code enforcement.

Oliver served within the Meeting, the place she was elected speaker in 2010. She served in that position till 2014, returning to the again benches when Murphy tapped her to be his operating mate in 2017. They gained the election that 12 months and have been reelected collectively in 2021.

She started her legislative profession in 2003, when she gained an Meeting seat in native Essex County. Earlier than that she served on the Essex County board of chosen freeholders from 1996 to 1999.

Born and raised in Newark, she earned a sociology diploma from Pennsylvania’s Lincoln College and had a grasp’s diploma in group group from Columbia College.

Talking from his workplace final week, Murphy remembered her as an advocate for inexpensive housing and for city communities throughout the state, together with Atlantic Metropolis, the place she was the de facto remaining choice maker for a few of the metropolis’s most consequential choices. A legislation handed below Republican Gov. Chris Christie gave management over a lot of the town’s main choices to the state.

As performing governor she signed a invoice in 2021 that established a pilot program to overtake the state’s juvenile justice system in 4 cities and which aimed to reintegrate younger folks into their communities. One other measure she signed in 2021 revived a defunct fund for “city enterprise zones” aimed driving financial growth in cities via decrease gross sales tax charges.

After mendacity in state within the statehouse Thursday, Oliver’s stays will lie within the historic Essex County courthouse Friday. A funeral service the place Al Sharpton and the governor will eulogize her is ready for Saturday.

The state structure requires Murphy to call a successor inside 45 days of the emptiness. He thus far has not nominated anybody.

Senate President Nicholas Scutari will function performing governor if Murphy leaves the state or is incapacitated within the interim.