Cory moved to Newark after law school and started a nonprofit organization to provide legal services for low-income families, helping tenants take on slumlords. In 1998, Cory moved into “Brick Towers” in Newark, which eventually became a housing project. Cory lived there until the housing project was demolished in 2006.
Cory still lives in Newark's Central Ward today, where he sees first-hand many of the challenges he's working to solve in Congress, such as lack of access to affordable health care, environmental injustice, food insecurity, and our broken criminal justice system.
Dating back to his time as a tenant's rights lawyer, City Council Member, and Mayor of Newark, Cory has seen first-hand the devastating effects of our broken criminal justice system and has worked tirelessly to find common-sense solutions to end mass incarceration and help people with criminal records successfully reintegrate into society. In his first term as a Senator, he authored and helped pass the First Step Act, the most sweeping set of criminal justice reforms in a generation, and the Fair Chance Act, a landmark bill making it easier for people to find jobs after they’ve been released from prison.