Jag Davies 🌹

How ICE Terror Campaigns Are Used to Discipline Labor While Chicago sees a surge of ICE detentions, workers are facing retaliation as immigrants when they advocate for their rights.

ICE is terrorizing immigrants—and being used as a tool to discipline labor. A witness in a wage theft case was detained. Immigrant warehouse workers face discrimination. Day laborers and street vendors are being targeted, and so are rapid response networks. My latest.

It's surprising that no other U.S. state has such strong requirements for affordable housing, despite all the many recent state-level housing and zoning reforms.

“Today, more than 400,000 New Jerseyans live in homes created through the Mount Laurel doctrine. Fifty years after the original ruling, it stands as one of the most durable and impactful examples of state constitutional law being used to confront structural inequality.”

This N.J. city just took an important step to keep rents from skyrocketing Passaic's new rent control ordinance cuts maximum annual increases in half and eliminates a loophole that allowed landlords to dramatically raise rents when tenants moved out.

Earlier this month, Passaic passed a new law that caps rent increases at 3% and ends vacancy decontrol.

Read more about the tremendous work by tenant organizers & @maketheroadnj.bsky.social to protect Passaic's residents from displacement and homelessness: www.nj.com/news/2025/09...

This is what is possible w/ state mandates for inclusion of a fair share of affordable housing, coupled w/ persistent enforcement. Not only inclusion on a building by building level, but town by town.
It doesnt just happen…

Mount Laurel at 50: New Jersey’s Blueprint for Dismantling Residential Segregation Fifty years ago, the New Jersey Supreme Court created a groundbreaking affordable housing framework. A new law gives it real teeth.

NEW: As the housing affordability crisis deepens, NJ's 1975 high court decision outlawing exclusionary zoning serves as a powerful model for other states. @jagdavies.bsky.social new piece explores one of the most compelling examples of state constitutional law being used to promote civil rights.

Mount Laurel at 50: New Jersey’s Blueprint for Dismantling Residential Segregation Fifty years ago, the New Jersey Supreme Court created a groundbreaking affordable housing framework. A new law gives it real teeth.

My new piece for @brennancenter.org's @statecourtreport.org looks at how New Jersey built the strongest statewide policy in the U.S. to *require* that every municipality create its fair share of affordable homes: statecourtreport.org/our-work/ana...

Mount Laurel at 50: New Jersey’s Blueprint for Dismantling Residential Segregation Fifty years ago, the New Jersey Supreme Court created a groundbreaking affordable housing framework. A new law gives it real teeth.

NEW: This year marks the 50th anniversary of the NJ Supreme Court's Mount Laurel decision outlawing exclusionary zoning in the state. Jag Davies @fairsharehousing.bsky.social gives a fascinating account of the groundbreaking ruling & long fight over enforcement. statecourtreport.org/our-work/ana...

The best in the nation, thanks largely to the persistance of @fairsharehousing.bsky.social
As famous as the Mt Laurel doctrine is among affordable and fair housing advocates, if anything it is under appreciated recent advocates of zoning reform focused mostly on market rate housing and cities.

Fifty Years After Mount Laurel, Affordable Housing Is Gaining Ground in New Jersey A 2024 law codifying the state’s Mount Laurel doctrine is speeding up construction and shifting local politics, even as lawsuits linger.

Thanks to NJ's new law strengthening the Mount Laurel Doctrine, far more towns are creating affordable housing than ever before.

Excellent reporting on NJ's affordable housing requirements — the strongest in the U.S. — by @roshanabraham.bsky.social for @nextcity.org & @shelterforce.bsky.social:

The truth is simple: affordable housing benefits everyone.

Yet too often, policymakers sabotage NJ's economic resilience by under-funding affordable housing & blocking developments — deciding who belongs, and who doesn’t.

Read Rev. Eric Dobson's op-ed: www.burlingtoncountytimes.com/story/opinio...

Tremendous work in Passaic by tenant organizers & @maketheroadnj.bsky.social to protect residents from displacement.

This ordinance caps rent increases at 3% and ends vacancy decontrol, which has let landlords raise rents without limits when units become vacant.

www.northjersey.com/story/news/p...

NJ’s homeless numbers show big increase | NJ Spotlight News The homeless population in NJ is the largest in more than a decade, according to the latest annual point-in-time count.

A new report shows a sharp increase in homelessness in NJ.

With federal cuts looming, state & local leaders must urgently prioritize building more affordable homes, strengthening tenant protections, and addressing the root causes of housing instability. www.njspotlightnews.org/2025/07/nj-h...

Appreciate this discussion. Drives home how zoning reform is *necessary but not sufficient* to fix the housing crisis. Even if Abundance types use it as a Trojan horse for a billionaire-friendly agenda, it's still needed—just insufficient w/out stronger tenant protections & public sector investment.

There might be an abundance of abundance discussions but this one is really special. It brings together expertise on the housing policy with the bigger question of a post-neoliberal agenda. Listen in!

Q: When it comes to immigration policy, which of the following Democratic candidates would you be more likely to vote for? 75% of Dem voters and 43% of independents selected "A Democratic candidate who fights for our freedoms by pushing back against family separation, mass raids, and forced detention without trial." 16% of Dem voters and 35% of independents selected "A Democratic candidate who prioritizes bipartisan compromise with Republicans to secure the border and deport undocumented immigrants." The remainder said either that a candidate's approach to immigration policy wouldn't influence or they'd never vote (12% among independents) for a Dem.

Since we are in new round (it never ends) of what Dems ought to do while fascists power grab, a view from voters in our latest Research Collaborative/Data for Progress national survey (N=1199, July 18-20)
TLDR: Dems and independents want Dem candidate who fights for immigrant rights.

How New York’s Tenants Won | Tara Raghuveer The night before the New York City municipal primary, the air was sticky with heat and Ferdousi Begum was too tense to sleep. For the past six months,

To understand how @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social won the mayoral primary by a full 12 points last month, it helps to understand how tenants like Ferdousi Begum and Parveg Hasan decided to go on the offensive against real estate.

My first for @nybooks.com, learned tons! www.nybooks.com/online/2025/...

Appreciate @inquest.bsky.social publishing this excerpt from my book Carceral Apartheid: How Lies and White Supremacists Run Our Prisons. @uncpress.bsky.social

Advocates say New Jersey budget falls short of affordable housing needs • New Jersey Monitor Advocates are sounding the alarm over the new state budget they say undercuts funding for the Affordable Housing Trust Fund.

New Jersey's senseless cuts to the Affordable Housing Trust Fund are penny-wise but pound-foolish. This is often the only source of funding for smaller, shovel-ready developments.

We're calling on Gov. Murphy & legislative leaders to restore the full funding. newjerseymonitor.com/2025/07/03/a...

The data is clear: fines and fees don’t deliver justice — they impose instability. ⛔

For decades, our state & local governments have relied on #FinesAndFees to fill budget gaps – extracting money from people drawn into our criminal, juvenile, traffic, and municipal courts. 🧵

Welcome to the Age of Disappearance America's new era of secret police.

When the Homeland Security funding from the new budget bill kicks in we are going to enter a fundamentally new era of unaccountable secret police that will change American politics and society for a long time.
www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/welcome-to...

If the GOP reconciliation bill passes, ICE gets through FY2029:

- $45 billion for detention, on top of the current annual budget of $3.4 billion
- $14.4 billion for transportation and removal, on top of the current annual budget of $750 million
- $8 billion for hiring/retention
- Billions more.

The Zohran Coalition Mamdani's Mandate & The Dawn of a New Day

NEW: Zohran Mamdani's multi-racial coalition toppled Andrew Cuomo on Tuesday. He won three of five boroughs, the renter class, & "middle income" residents; doing best overall with younger & less frequent voters.

My take on Mamdani's Mandate:
www.michaellange.nyc/p/the-zohran...

The job of a good message isn't to say what is popular. The job of a good message is to make popular what we need said.

Zohran Mamdani’s Mandate Is A Democratic Earthquake There will now be a high-stakes battle to define the meaning of the New York mayoral candidate’s historic win.

The battle for the future started last night.

The Democratic Party political/media elite are going to try to tell you the election didn’t matter, and the victory was only about charisma, rather than a mandate for policy change.

The fight only just starting. Buckle up — it’s gonna be a wild ride.

The Subway Is Not Scary Fear of the subway is a mark of low moral character.

Fear of the New York City subway is a mark of low moral character.
www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/the-subway...

How America Failed the Unhoused Brian Goldstone’s There Is No Place For Us is an enraging book about the intertwined calamities of homelessness and wage labor.

i reviewed @brian-goldstone.bsky.social's stunning book There Is No Place For Us. the book will make you very sad and angry but it is a vital and inarguable rebuttal to the american fantasy that the only thing between you and a good life is hard work www.thenation.com/article/soci...

The Tyranny of Public Opinion The battle over trans rights shows that Democrats have forgotten the fundamentals of politics

"A wealth of research shows that voters don’t come to their policy preferences organically — they follow the cues of political figures they identify with. It’s not that politicians see where voters stand and try to move toward them, it’s the other way around." stringinamaze.net/p/the-tyrann...

You can’t cut property taxes while opposing affordable housing Thoughtfully designed affordable housing stabilizes and strengthens our neighborhoods.

A critically important OpEd from @fairsharehousing.bsky.social:

"Affordable housing isn’t charity. It’s infrastructure."

www.nj.com/mosaic/2025/...